


You were born to be real

by strangenessandcharm



Series: Hate the sin love the sinner [Leverage AU] [1]
Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Leverage AU, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6737185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangenessandcharm/pseuds/strangenessandcharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Grifter, hitter, hacker, thief. You’re all trying to solve your version of the crime instead of just trying to…solve the crime. There’s a reason we work together.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [InfiniteRarepairFicathon2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/InfiniteRarepairFicathon2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>   
> 
>    
> (Any Pairings) Something based on this au, please: http://41days.org/post/138341468586/inspiritsnet-prompts-non-idolau-leverageau
> 
> _“Grifter, hitter, hacker, thief. You’re all trying to solve your version of the crime instead of just trying to…solve the crime. There’s a reason we work together.”_
> 
> _INFINITE as a team consists of several people who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens._
> 
> ➤ The Mastermind: Sunggyu  
> ➤ The Hacker: Sungyeol  
> ➤ The Grifters: Woohyun & Myungsoo  
> ➤ The Hitters: Dongwoo & Hoya  
> ➤ The Thief: Sungjong
> 
>  
> 
> Quick shout out to the gorgeous S who did a cursory edit of this for me, but more importantly acted as my sounding board despite not being able to tell a member of Infinite from a member of Seventeen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man I've got to apologise to basically everyone for this one, especially the prompter. It's a rare _ **pair**_ ficathon and there's basically no romance in here at all. This started out as a six year storyline vignette thing but I cannot write concisely to save my life so it turned into this, and therefore the romance aspect of it sort of dropped by the wayside. There are hints for sure as to what I'm trying to emphasise or what direction I'd take this in if I ever wrote those whole 6 years but not enough of any pairing to tag them? So basically I failed everything about this ficathon but I spent so long on this I need to publish.
> 
> Also a couple of things in the backstories of the original post have changed, you probably can't really tell from the writing but they have. It's probably also important to know they've been aged up a couple of years; they're not 17 - 21 but exact ages are ambiguous on purpose.
> 
> This is my first Infinite (or Kpop) fic so I'm really hesitant about this but here we go.
> 
> This is (almost) all written but it just needs edited to buggery so I should have it all up within a week.

**The REDACTED Job**

**2011: September**

 

**Target: Taeyang and Seungri Park**

**Client: REDACTED**

**Location: REDACTED**

 

 **Status: Shit Show**  

 

ACT ONE

 

The kitchen of the frankly quite rundown apartment is silent when Woohyun enters it one chilly September morning. The room only has three other occupents, Sungjong is perched on the kitchen counter because the kid can’t use chairs, Sungyeol is sitting in thearmchair that Sunggyu inexplicably keeps in his kitchen, laptop balanced on his lap as always and Dongwoo is sitting like a regular human being on one of the stools of the breakfast bar.

“Is Sunggyu meeting with a new client?” Dongwoo asks as Woohyun takes the seat next to him.

“Obviously,” Sungyeol doesn’t even look up from his laptop. “why else would he have called us all here?”

“Maybe he wanted to do some team bonding activities or something.” Dongwoo shrugs, getting off his stool to raid the fridge. Woohyun’s not sure who keeps that stocked, there’s probably a proportion of money from their jobs that goes into feeding them all; Sunggyu wouldn’t do it out of his own money.

“Can you imagine team bonding activities with Sunggyu?” Sungyeol asks the room at large, eyes still glued to that damn screen. He could be getting started on the next job already or he could be playing some inane online game, it’s 50:50 with Sungyeol. 

“Yelling at us from the sidelines as we did trust falls or something,” Woohyun says, shivering internally at the mental image, “I think I’ll pass.”  

“Why, don’t you wanna do a trust fall with me?” Sungjong asks cheerfully. Woohyun imagines his idea of a trust fall involves more _falling_ than usual.

“I’ve fallen with you three too many times,” Woohyun tells him dryly. The day he never has to see Sungjong’s infernal climbing rig cannot come soon enough.

“I’ll do a trust fall with you Sungjongie,” Dongwoo says, emerging from the fridge with his hands full of fruit of all things.

“No thanks,” Sungjong responds dryly, “If it’s all the same to you I’d rather not repeat the experience.” Woohyun doesn’t blame him, he hates hurtling through the air on Sungjong’s death trap even without Dongwoo screaming in his ear and loosing his lunch half way down. 

Dongwoo doesn’t seem particularly offended, he just shrugs, looking around the room before seeming to come to a realisation, “Where’s Myungsoo?”

“Meeting the client with Sunggyu.” Sungyeol offers. He must be working on the job already Woohyun decides, because that’s the only reason for him to be this quiet and not teasing Dongwoo mercilessly at the opening he’d been given. 

“That’s usually your job.”Woohyun points out. He doesn’t need to ask the question verbally. 

“Sunggyu decided a pretty face would go down better with this client.” Sungyeol shrugs, finally looking up at them, “Something about Myungsoo’s dimples being reassuring.”

“Your face is just as pretty as Myungsoo’s,” Dongwoo says matter-of-factly as he takes a bite out of an apple.

“I know, _and_ I don’t have a serial killer smile.” Woohyun would privately like to disagree, not that he’s dumb enough say it and risk pissing off their hacker.“But I’ve got to let Sunggyu believe he’s in charge so I let it go.”

“Do you know anything about the client?” Woohyun asks, wanting to perhaps be ahead of the game for once, steal some wind out of Sunggyu’s sails.

“Not a thing.” Sungyeol says, clearly lyings through his teeth. Woohyun doesn’t bother challenging him though because Sungyeol can be stubborn. 

“Still no Hoya?” Dongwoo asks, as if that’s a surprising thing. Hoya shows up for jobs, sticks around for a few days to make sure the two people he actually gives a shit about are okay and the disappears until he’s called on again. Woohyun had thought when Myungsoo decided to stick around with them Hoya might have as well but he clearly has better things to do with his time. Children to rob or underground fights clubs to run or something. 

“I think he’s in Austria.” Sungjong provides helpfully.

“Does he even speak Austrian?” Dongwoo asks curiously, tilting his head to the side. 

“Seeing as Austrian is not a language that _exists_ I’m not sure he does.” Sungyeol taunts him playfully, before adding “they speak German in Austria.”

“I mean technically Austrian-German is a bit different to German the same way Quebec-French is different to French,” Woohyun can’t help pointing out in Dongwoo’s defence.

“Except Austrian-German and German are basically mutually interchangeable, in the same way English and American-English are.” Sungyeol says. Woohyun’s not even sure what they’re talking about anymore. 

“Hoya-hyung speaks German.” Sungjong cuts them off, that very faint undercurrent of _pride_ he can never quite hide when he talks about his ‘Hoya-hyung’ evident in his voice. 

“What language doesn’t he speak.” Woohyun mutters underneath his breath.

 Unfortunately their thief and hacker both have extraordinary hearing, because Sungyeol shoots him a look that’s way too knowing for his liking, and Sungjong starts listing off languages on his fingers with a smirk, “I don’t think he’s ever bothered with Italian. Or Iranian. Malay, Amharic, Cantonese,”

“Alright, I get the picture” Woohyun rolls his eyes, continuing sarcastically “Hoya is supreme, his skills are on another level, none of us are necessary he could pull off these jobs on his own,”

“If you really think so,” Sunggyu says, choosing that moment to walk in because of course he does. “I’m sure the rest of us could leave this job to you.” 

“Like you would be able to let us.” Woohyun shoots back straight away, not micromanaging things probably causes Sunggyu physical pain.

Sunggyu ignores him, leaning against the kitchen door frame as Myungsoo heads straight for the armchair and manages to squeeze himself in next to Sungyeol without disrupting the laptop that Woohyun is starting to believe is surgically attached to Sungyeol 

“Speaking of Hoya someone should try and find him,” Sunggyu says, looking pained at the thought they can’t start straight away and Hoya will have to be located. Which is ridiculous, most of the time it’s Sungyeol and Sungjong that do the initial stages of the jobs, and it’s not like it’ll be hard to find him. For certain members of the team at least.

“We’ve done that already.” Dongwoo says, basically bouncing on the balls of his feet, “He’s in Austria.”

“Well he’s no good to us in Austria is he.” Sunggyu basically barks, as if this is completely out of character for Hoya. It’s not. 

“I sent him a message when you told me we had a new job,” Myungsoo tells Sunggyu earnestly waving his phone around and almost knocking Sungyeol in the head, “He says he’ll be here by this time tomorrow.” 

Sunggyu lets out an exasperated huff“I suppose there’s nothing can be done about that.”

And he has the nerve to call Woohyun the overdramatic one.

 

♤♤♤

 

Sunggyu basically kicks them out of his apartment once it’s been established that they should wait for Hoya’s arrival before moving forward (it usually takes Sungyeol and sometimes Sungjong close to a day to gather the information needed to even start the rough planning anyway - real life isn’t a movie and they don’t know everything about their marks off the top of their head). 

Predictably Woohyun is the only one that actually leaves, Sungyeol and Sungjong staying behind to do their jobs, Myungsoo sticking to Sungyeol’s side like he’s gotten into the habit of doing recently, and well Woohyun’s pretty sure Dongwoo actually lives there.

That doesn’t stop Dongwoo ‘walking Woohyun out’ like Woohyun can’t find his way out of Sunggyu’s run down excuse of an apartment. He’s never been able to figure out if it’s so bad because Sunggyu’s repenting for something or thinks it’s less conspicuous (it’s not - it’s definitely the kind of place you wouldn’t be surprised to find out your neighbour was conducting criminal activities). It’s big enough to fit six, sometimes seven, of them comfortably though and Woohyun doesn’t _live_ there so who is he to complain. 

“I think this job is going to be a fun one.” Dongwoo tells him excitedly as they venture out onto the street.

“Why?” Woohyun asks trying to sound curious but not too curious, “Has Sunggyu told you something.”

“Nope,” Dongwoo shakes his head seeming incredibly unbothered by this development. Woohyun has given up trying to understand Sunggyu and Dongwoo’s relationship, obviously they’re close - Dongwoo came over with Sunggyu after all - but at the same time Dongwoo always seems to be getting information at the same time as the rest of them. “Gyu just _seems_ excited.”

“I can see that,” Woohyun’s not sure Sunggyu has ever been _excited_ a day in his life but he did seem more… self-satisfied than usual today, more annoyed than usual about Hoya’s customary absence. Wonders really will never cease. “Kind of.”

“Something really fun is planned for us.” Dongwoo nods, “I can tell.”

“What more guys for you to beat up?” Woohyun asks teasingly.

“That’s not it.” Dongwoo tells him incredibly seriously, “I don’t like beating people up,” This isn’t news to Woohyun or to anyone with eyes really. Woohyun’s not sure how Dongwoo got so _good_ at it.He’s probably done his compulsory military service but there’s obviously more to the story than that. He’s not going to pry though because they’ve have an understand no one wants to talk about their background. Except Sunggyu but that’s Sunggyu, “But I do like when we take down people that take advantage of others. I don’t like it when people abuse their power.”

 “None of us do,” Woohyun reassures him. “That’s why we’re here.”

 “Not all of us.” Dongwoo disagrees mildly but doesn’t elaborate. Woohyun isn’t sure if he’s being called out or if Dongwoo is just making an observation. He doesn’t want to know so he doesn’t challenge it.

 “I guess,” Woohyun lets the conversation drop as they’ve reached the front of the apartment complex, instead he says, “I can make my own way home from here Dongwoo I promise.”

 “You just don’t want any of us to know where you live.” Dongwoo teases him affably. As far as he’s aware no one knows where anyone, with the exception of Sunggyu obviously, lives. Sungyeol probably knows where everyone is at anyone time but that kid is just creepy. “Someone will contact you when Hoya shows up.” Dongwoo sends him off with a wave, “Bye Woohyun.”

 

♤♤♤

 

“Nice of you to finally join us.” Hoya smirks at Woohyun when he arrives at Sunggyu’s the next day (exactly 24 hours after they first discuss it. Dongwoo says it uncanny when he calls Woohyun but Woohyun thinks Hoya waited on purpose so he could be a dramatic bastard). They’re gathered in the living room this time since that’s where Sungyeol has his huge display screen set up (In the building they’re in it’s a miracle nothing’s been stolen).

 “Funny,” Woohyun pulls his face into a sneer. The room really isn’t big enough for for seven guys, even with Sungyeol standing at the front of the room, Sungjong on the floor and Hoya perched on the back of the sole arm chair, Myungsoo between his legs, so it’s a bit of a squeeze for Woohyun as he sits himself besides Sunggyu. “Can we get started?”

 “We were waiting for you.” Sungjong tells him dryly.

 Woohyun would retort, he has a gloriously funny one right on the tip of his tongue, but Sunggyu butts in clearly having no patience for more delays, “Sungyeol, if you will.”

 “Paradise night club,” Sungyeol starts, flicking a picture onto the television screen.

 “Oh, I’ve heard of that place.” Myungsoo pipes up enthusiastically, “It’s super popular with young rich people but it’s like you only hear about it if you’re a young rich people, right?” He asks Sungyeol.

 “Right,” Sungyeol says dryly, “Which I would have told you in three seconds if you hadn’t interrupted me.

 Myungsoo just shrugs with a cheeky grin, “You weren’t fast enough.”

 “How have _you_ heard of this Paradise nightclub?” Woohyun can’t help asking. “It really doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

 “I’m young and rich,” Myungsoo tells him deadpan.

 “And pretty.” Sungyeol interjects helpfully, “That’s probably the most important consideration to getting into this place.” 

“Well obviously.” Myungsoo says matter-of-factly.

 “Back on topic.” Sunggyu says dryly, though he’s clearly suppressing a little smile at the antics, “Sungyeol,”

 “Paradise, as Myungsoo has so kindly told us,” Myungsoo shoots Sungyeol an over exaggerated thumbs up as Hoya whacks him gently on the side of the head, “Is basically your typical rich, young and pretty people club, illegal drug trade on the side and all.”

 “Drug dealers aren’t our usual type of target,” Dongwoo points out. He’s right, drug dealers whilst not pleasant people are usually small fish, not so much destroying people’s lives through abuse of their power as helping people destroy their own lives.

 “Especially drug dealers that deal to rich, _willing_ kids with too much time on their hands.” Woohyun isn’t bitter. Much.

 “If everyone stopped interrupting,” Sunggyu sighs, “you’d see that’s not what this is about at all. They’re running a drug ring on the side, but that’s not really our problem at all.”

 “Harsh,” Woohyun hears Myungsoo mutter to Hoya who simply nods in reply.

 “Right,” Sungyeol nods,“Our client, who wants to reman anonymous to everyone but Sunggyu and I guess Myungsoo - which I strongly protest by the way;”

 “Yeah,” Hoya interrupts with a frown. Sungyeol would probably be about three seconds away from exploding at all the interruptions, but Hoya seems to be agreeing with him so he lets it slide, “Anonymous clients are never a good idea.”

 “They’re not anonymous to me,” Sunggyu answers calmly, “They’re just anonymous to you.”

 “Very rarely does someone have a good reason for staying anonymous.” Hoya seems insistent on this point. Once again Woohyun has to wonder about what exactly Hoya did with himself before joining up with them. “Sometimes they’re setting up a way to deny liability, sometimes they’re not telling you everything or manipulating you, and sometimes, sometimes it’s a trap.”

 Woohyun notices out of the corner of his eye Myungsoo wrapping his fingers gently around Hoya’s ankle.

 “He’s not wrong.” Sungjong adds quietly, Sungyeol nodding in agreement as well, arms crossed over his chest.

 “Our client is a known entity,” Sunggyu is choosing his words carefully, “Who is going behind the backs of some powerful people in her life to try and shut something down she knows is immoral, she can’t afford for her involvement to get out.”

 “None of us would leak who she was.” Dongwoo tells Sunggyu, shooting the puppy dog eyes at him and looking downright offended at the idea they would.

 “It was her condition of coming to us,” Sunggyu says.

 “She won’t know if you tell us,” Woohyun can’t help pointing out. It’d be amusing, the way Kim Sunggyu clings to some things in an attempt to convince himself he’s still an honest man, if it wasn’t so annoying.

 “No. You don’t need to know, it doesn’t affect the job.” Sunggyu tells them in a tone that means he’s getting tired of this discussion and probably three seconds away from snapping.

 Hoya looks like he’s going to continue the argument, but then he looks down at Myungsoo for a few seconds before sighing, “Let it be known I told you this was going to bite us in the ass when it does bite us in the ass.” he says steadfast but makes no further move to argue.

 “Are we done with this ego-contest?” Sungyeol asks once the silence drags on long enough to indicate no one else is going to say anything on the matter, “Can I continue this briefing sometime this century.”

 “Go ahead.” Sunggyu says.

 “Identity fraud,” Sungyeol says in a rush, probably wanting to get it out before he’s interrupted again, “They’re running both carding and identity fraud schemes.”

 “On top of their drug dealing and ridiculously overpriced everything,” Sungjong says quietly, “That’s a good haul, presuming they’re selling the identities off and getting one or two a night, that’s over 200 thousand.”

 “We’re in the wrong business,” Woohyun jokes with a low whistle.

 “Like you haven’t stolen in a day what they probably take in a year,” Sungyeol rolls his eyes at him.

 “Maybe in a week,” He concedes with a shrug. Whilst he doesn’t know exactly how lucrative the drug trade or selling stolen identities is, Sungjong is usually right about these things.

 “They store it in offshore accounts, because what criminal doesn’t store their proceeds of crime in The Cayman Islands,” Sungyeol says.

 “The ones that store it in Luxembourg,” Hoya offers with a cheeky grin.

 “Switzerland,” Myungsoo suggests.

 “Panama.” Is Sungjong’s contribution.

 “Alright, we’ve shown that we all know our tax havens, I’m very proud” Sunggyu cuts them off before they can go any further. It’s not like it would have lasted long, the number of tax havens in the world is dying out.

“The point is,” The irritation is actually creeping into Sungyeol’s voice now. Woohyun doesn’t know why he’s bothered, this is how literally every briefing goes, “Our bad guys, Taeyang and his brother Seungri Kim,” Here he flashes two pictures onto the screen, “They own the club and they’re the brains of the whole operation.”

“Their names are Seungri and Taeyang?” Dongwoo asks skeptically, “Like their actual birth names.”

 “Rich people.” Myungsoo nods as if that explains anything. It kind of does.

 “They look like they don’t have a brain between them,” Woohyun says, looking at the screen consideringly. He’s come across all different kinds of people, unsavoury and perfectly adequate across his career but these guys just look like your average air headed, club owning rich dudes only with a couple more tattoos in Taeyang’s case.

 “First appearances can be deceiving,” Dongwoo tells him solemnly leaning across Sunggyu so he can look Woohyun in the eye. Of course Woohyun is aware of that, he’d just been making an observation.

 “Woohyun would know all about that,” Hoya can’t help but add. Can’t help but slip in a reference to their first meetinganywhere he can find an opportunity and sometimes where there isn’t an opportunity beyond his clumsy attempt to remind everyone.

 “The _point_ is these guys have got to come from money right?” Woohyun says, he’s not usually one to make guesses too early, but it seems obvious.

 “The thing is, we’re not sure,” Sunggyu says with a sigh. Woohyun’s not sure he heard that right, Sunggyu has never admitted to not knowing things, they usually come into these briefings with Sungyeol knowing everything about their marks right down to the name of the doctor that delivered them.

 “Taeyang and Seungri are like you guessed, typical rich kids with too much money inherited from daddy when he died just after they turned 18. Invested it in a club because that’s what rich kids do,” Sungyeol explains, “But I’m not entirely sure that these guys _are_ Taeyang and Seungri.”

 “How can you not be sure?” Hoya asks, leaning forwards so far he bumps his chest into the back of Myungsoo’s head.Smooth.

 “It looks legit, on the top level and the second level right down to about the 6th level of digging, they look to be Taeyang and Seungri Park,” Sungyeol says looking frustrated. Maybe his annoyance at them had been an outlet for frustration at this, “But something about it just doesn’t feel right to me.”

“Is it going to be a problem?” Sungjong ask quietly, always on topic that kid.

 “Probably not.” Sunggyu dismisses uncharacteristically.

 “I’ll dig into it and find the answer, I just need more time,” Sungyeol says, levelling a glare on Sunggyu that suggests this is not the first time they’ve had the discussion.

 “It doesn’t matter who they were,” Sunggyu says dismissively. That’s incredibly misguided way of thinking and very out of character. No one bothers arguing anymore though because everyone’s clearly come to the same conclusion; Sunggyu is taking this job no matter what. “It matters who they are, what they’re doing, and-”

 “And what we’re going to do to stop them,” Dongwoo cuts him off with a cheeky smile.

 “Yes that,” Sunggyu sighs, before perking up, “If it’s identities they want we’ll give them identities. Myungsoo’s identity, to be precise.”

 Woohyun wonders how long he practiced that one in the mirror.

 “How come I’m always the bait,” Myungsoo moans with a pout, “It’s not fair, why can’t Woohyun do it for once.”

 “You just have that innocent look about you,” Hoya laughs, reaching out to ruffle Myungsoo’s hair, “People want to take advantage of your naive little face,”

 “Get off me hyung,” Myungsoo mutters, attempting to blindly elbow Hoya in the side but really only managing to jab the soft part of his bicep into Hoya’s knee.

 Myungsoo yelps in pain and Hoya laughs even harder, “See, you’re like a baby giraffe, the perfect bait.”

 “Fuck you.” Is Myungsoo’s ever so eloquent reply.

 “As we’ve already established,” Sunggyu cuts them off with a sigh, his tone very clearly letting them know they shouldn’t be questioning him and he shouldn’t have to be explaining himself, “Myungsoo looks exactly like the sort of person that would be seen at this place.”

 “Are you saying Woohyun isn’t pretty?” Myungsoo asks, eyes wide.

 Sunggyu casts Woohyun a glance before looking back at Myungsoo, “That’s not what I said but,” and shrugs.

 Woohyun is feeling the love.

 “Woohyun _is_ also going in though, we want to cover two bases here,” Sunggyu continues as if the interruption had never happened, “Myungsoo as a potential target, Woohyun as a new employee and potential fall guy.”

 “If Myungsoo doesn’t want to be the bait I’ll switch with him,” Woohyun offers humorously if only to ruffle Sunggyu’s feathers and waste his time.

 “I’m up for that,” Myungsoo says cheerfully.

 “No,” Sunggyu says forcefully, “This is what we’re doing would you both shut up and listen.”

 “Whatever,” Myungsoo folds his arms over his chest and pouts, leaning back into Hoya. As always Woohyun isn’t sure if it’s genuine or for show, Myungsoo is one of the few people he struggles to get a read on. “Give me the worst job, like always.”

 Famous last words perhaps.

 

♤♤♤

 

As it turns out it’s not particularly difficult to get rid of the Park’s current fall boy. Sungjong steals a bar fridge, Sungyeol hacks a university server, Dongwoo knocks a few heads together and the guys is out of the way.

Getting Woohyun in place is even easier, he looks as innocent and naive as possible happens to be in the ’right place’ at the right time to bump into a few people and he’s golden. 

Ten days is all he’s given to establish himself before Sunggyu decides to send Myungsoo in. It’s not really enough time, Woohyun would usually have double as long to be thorough and everyone knows it. Everyone also knows Sunggyu is rushing this job for some reason and arguing with him will do nothing but piss him off more, so they just somehow manage to work harder and faster than ever before.

Woohyun hadn’t thought that was possible.

He’s heading into their ‘headquarters’ for their final brainstorm before the plan really kicks into gear (Sunggyu calls it a brainstorm - everyone else knows it’s just Sunggyu talking through the plan they all know for the four hundredth time) when he’s waylaid by Dongwoo in the building’s lobby.

 “Can we talk for a second?” Dongwoo asks, twisting his hands nervously.

 For anyone else Woohyun would offer a snarky comment, but since it’s Dongwoo he just nods, “Sure, what’s up.”

 “We, I think both Hoya and I should come with you tonight,” He says in a rush.

 Woohyun raises an eyebrow, “Who is we? You and Hoya?” Figures Hoya would want an opportunity to be closer to the action, not that they’re guaranteed to get any ‘action’ tonight.

 “We as in pretty much everyone but Sungjong,” Dongwoo admits, “Or Sungyeol at least. Myungsoo probably just agrees with Hoya.”

 “And you have’t asked Sungjong because? You have a death wish?” He guesses, leaning against the dirty pillar by the doorway. Absently he wonders if Sunggyu has cameras down here; probably not though Sungyeol definitely does.

 “Because no one asks me anything.” Sungjong announces his presence by dropping out of the ceiling. Woohyun has to suppress a flinch, how does he keep _doing_ that; sneaking up on people despite them knowing his tricks, “Because thieves are the crazy, reclusive ones with bad social skills,” He rolls his eyes.

 “Well that cliche certainly doesn’t apply to you,” Woohyun tells him. In all honestly, Sungjong is probably the most well adjusted of the lot of them.

 “No, I just haven’t seen you all day.” Dongwoo tells Sungjong. It’s probably not a lie, “You were next on my list. Or Hoya’s list actually.”

 “Well we’re both here now,” Sungjong says with that twist of his lips that means he’s trying to suppress amusement because he’s ‘above the chaos’, “So present your argument”

 “You’ve haven’t been given enough time, you’re good at what you do Woohyun but sometimes you just need time, and Sunggyu isn’t going to let us drag this out any longer,” Dongwoo says in a rush, tripping his words into each other slightly. He’s right though, Sunggyu seems annoyed they’ve had to wait this long to send Myungsoo in. “And sending Myungsoo in when you’re not super established seems risky so, I don’t know it’d be nice to have some sense of certainty.” Dongwoo shrugs, trailing off awkwardly, before asking hesitantly, “What do you think?”

 “Sunggyu is obviously, more emotionally invested in this than he’s willing to tell us,” Woohyun says carefully.

 “Not making smart decisions,” Sungjong says bluntly. This is the pitfall of having one ‘mastermind with a god-complex’ a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Hoya says. It might not be a voice in his head now he thinks about it; it’s a memory.

 “You’ve been round Sunggyu the longest,” Woohyun says to Dongwoo, “Since he was actual as moral as he pretends to be, don’t you have any idea what this is about?”

 “Just because I’ve known Sunggyu-hyung the longest doesn’t mean he _tells_ me everything.” He pauses consideringly, “Or anything really.” Dongwoo is saying it as cheerfully as always but there’s definitely some sort of undercurrent of hurt there, “In fact I think because I’ve known him the longest he tells me the least.”

 Woohyun understands that but he can’t condone it when Dongwoo looks so _sad_ about it.

 “Sungyeol says he thinks the client might be someone that Sunggyu knows,” Sungjong suggests. Woohyun notices for the first time that he has a com in his ear.

 “Is he the only one listening in here?” Woohyun asks wryly, “Or are we attempting to have an inconspicuous team meeting behind Sunggyu’s back.”

 “Hoya’s doing a final sweep of the club and everything around it,” Dongwoo offers.

 Sungjong nods, “He’s on a separate channel with Sunggyu,” God bless multiple channels of these things. Though if Sunggyu, as the technologically challenged grandpa that he is, accidentally switches onto the frequency the Lee’s are using they’re all going to be skinned alive. “Myungsoo is wherever Myungsoo goes,”

 “Can’t Sungyeol just do his magic computer thing and find out who the client is?” Woohyun asks with a hand wave.

 There’s a pause as they give Sungyeol time to relay his response through Sungjong. “Too many people have had their identities stolen at Paradise and Sunggyu and Myungsoo aren’t giving anything away, Sungyeol could look further but that’d take time away from the actual job.” Sungjong parrots remarkably obediently for once, “Why am I the only one with the com, this conversation would be much quicker and easier if I wasn’t being your puppet.” There’s the sass.

 Sungyeol says something that Sungjong doesn’t bother repeating to them though he does sigh, “Fine. Sunggyu is coming so Sungyeol is ‘out’ but he wants Woohyun to know he agrees that we should be cautious on this one.”

 “It’s not a bad idea, god knows we’ve cut too many corner already.” Woohyun can feel the start of a headache at the front of his brain, “But if there’s four of us there that doesn’t really leave many people left if something goes wrong or someone’s made.”

 “We’ll make it work, we won’t be made, Sunggyu’s very good at working situations to our advantage.” Dongwoo says earnestly. He is, when he’s on the top of his game, but they’ve all established that’s not where he’s at right now. “But I have a bad feeling about this, I think we need both of us.”

 “Hoya just wants to be involved doesn’t he?” Woohyun sighs, before rushing on and ignoring Dongwoo’s frown, “Fine, I’ll help you convince Sunggyu but if he’s set on only you there’s really not going to be any way of convincing him.”

 “Six against one, he’s got to listen.” Dongwoo says confidently, before questioning much more hesitantly, “Right?”

 

♤♤♤

 

To pretty much everyone’s surprise it’s actually Sunggyu that orders both Hoya and Dongwoo to accompany them that evening. Woohyun isn’t sure if it’s a sign he actually is aware of the talking that was going on behind his back and he’s making a point (a convoluted one if that’s the case) or if he’s simply drawn the same conclusions as Dongwoo.

 Hoya is to be a friend accompanying Myungsoo as he flashes his cash around, Dongwoo’s job is to keep an eye on Woohyun, but apart from that the meeting is kind of pointless because they’ve well established what everyone’s doing. Even when they’re more rushed than usual Sunggyu’s plans are fully realised from the get go.

 So Woohyun has to sit through what feels like two hours of Sunggyu enjoying the sound of his own voice before he’s sent off to associate with the scum bags of the world. He loves his job.

 “Minjun,” Taeyang crows Woohyun’s alias as he walks into the club an hourbefore opening, “Just the man we were looking for.”

 “I’m not late am I?” Woohyun forces the worry into his voice.

 “Not at all,” Seungri reassures him. These guys are good at playingup the charm, Woohyun will give them that. “We just wanted to talk to you before your shift started.”

 “Okay,” Woohyun smiles in a way that comes across clueless and slightly intrigued, “What’s up?”

 “There’s someone we want you to meet,” Taeyang says, before stepping aside and revealing their enforcer. Excellent, Woohyun struggles not to smile, he’s been waiting for an introduction to their enforcer. “And something we need to talk about.”

 “Nice to meet you,” Woohyun bows his head in greeting, “I’m Minjun.”

 “Dongwook,” is all Dongwook says, looking for all the world exactly like you’d expect and enforcer to look. Woohyun really hopes there’s _someone_ listening in on him right now. Who’s he kidding Sunggyu is always listening.

“Dongwook is in charge of, procurement,” Seungri tells him with a knowing smirk. 

“Procurement?” Woohyun plays dumb. Of course they’re talking about the illegal side of things but Minjun doesn’t know that, “I thought that was Jessie’s job,” he’s referring to the day-to-day manager of the club. Legal procurement.

“Yes well, Minjun Oh,” Seungri leans forward in a way that would make Woohyun’s skin crawl if he wasn’t so used to dealing with these types of people, “Did you really think we hired you because of your Sex on The Beach?”

 “It’s pretty great?” Woohyun shrugs trying to seem both cocky and confused. It’s a tough balancing act, to appear hard enough that they think he can handle their under the table dealings but naive enough that he won’t see that he’s being set up as the fall guy. Or it would be if Woohyun wasn’t the best at what he did.

 “Now, now Minjun do you really think we didn’t do our due diligence on you.”

 “Sorry?” Woohyun says sounding confused. God if they could just come out with their confession of illegal things that’d be great, Woohyun deals with enough drama queens in his team he doesn’t need another one.

 “Gwangju, May 2007. Ringing any bells?” Taeyang asks.

 Woohyun forces the blood from his face through sheer force of will. “I don’t-” he starts to say, wetting his lips with his tongue. Ignoring the way Dongwook is staring at him.

 “You’re not playing dumb with us are you?” Taeyang asks mildly, not-so-subtly eyeing the large lemon cutting knife on the bench next to him. Subtlety is lacking with this bunch.

 “No, I.. that was meant to be sealed.” He says, looking down at his feet.

 “Oh, we have our ways.” Taeyang grins in a way that actually does make Woohyun’s blood run slightly colder. Only a degree or two though, “We also know about Chicago.”

 “I…” Woohyun stutters.

 “Different name, but it’s clearly you Minjun, which is something I’m sure the Chicago police would love to hear about,” Seungri interjects like he’s bored by this whole thing.

 “What,” Woohyun stutters out again before drawing himself up defiant. He’s got to make them think there’s some fire in him, “What do you want from me,” He grins wryly, “Or what do you want me to do?”

 “Now he’s getting it,” Seungri smirks, “Nothing you’re not comfortable with of course. In fact we want you to do exactly what you’ve always done.”

 

♤♤♤

 

Honestly the night has been going better than Woohyun could have expected, despite Sunggyu’s clearly rushed plan. After he’s been told pretty much everything he already knows about the illegal activities being run out of the club, with a couple of extra details that he’s sure Sunggyu and Sungyeol are going over right now, it’s time to open.

 Myungsoo shows up a couple of hours after opening and starts throwing around his money. Making himself conspicuous in the way only rich people can. Hoya is stuck to his side, nothing new there, though this time he’s playing those hangers-on that rich people always attract.

 Dongwoo is here as well, floating through the crowd, ending up on the dance floor with an enthusiasm (and skill) Woohyun wasn’t aware he had.

 It’s almost midnight, the club just starting to fill to capacity when Taeyang sidles up next to him, “So, Minjun,” that smirk can mean nothing good, “You’ve heard about what we do, so time to pull your weight.”

 Woohyun swallows, not sure exactly what that means, “Anyone caught your eye tonight, anyone you would be a strategic recipient for VIP treatment,” He’s talking vaguely, so anyone who happens to overhear would take the words at face value, yet he’s still felt the need to lean in, a solid and unwelcome presence at Woohyun’s back.

 It’s a golden opportunity, one Woohyun didn’t expect to get so soon. He could set him in the direction of Myungsoo, but since it’s Myungsoo’s first night in the club it might appear suspicious. On the other hand sending him to steal the identity of some unsuspecting club goer is something Sunggyu would probably not approve of.

 “Myungsoo,” Sunggyu’s voice hisses through the ear piece, “For fuckssake Woohyun stop weighing your non-existence choices. The only option is Myungsoo.”

 Woohyun suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, Sunggyu’s hastiness is going to end badly, before saying, “I’ve never seen the kid over there before,” Nodding his head in Myungsoo’s direction, noting with a smirk that he has gotten up on a table to draw attention to himself, clever, “But he seems to have the money to be a VIP. Or,” he throws in just to cover all basses, “The girl in the pink minidress has been in an awful lot. It’d help if I knew who already had the VIP treatment.”

 Taeyang looks at him appraisingly before nodding in apparent satisfaction, “Could be a good choice, if a little predictable.”

 “Like I said, I’ve never seen him before so I know he doesn’t have status already.” Woohyun said, unable to help the sass. Taeyang’s approval seems to grow. Woohyun makes a mental note that backbone is respected around here as long as it’s not insubordination.

 “I’ll give you a list after your shift.” Taeyang tells him with approval, “We’re done here.”

 “If you’re finished with your secret business,” One of the other bartenders, Minah says, sliding a brightly coloured drink across the bar towards him,“This is for you,”

“For me?” Woohyun asks with a frown.

“Yeah,” Minah smirks, “Rich guy over there,” she gestures in a general direction of the club so vague there are about twelve guys she could be pointing to, “Sent it over for you with a _very_ generous tip.”

 Woohyun eyes the drink warily, “It’s not going to bite you,” Taeyang tells him with a dry laugh, “And we wouldn’t want to offend our well paying customers now would be,” There’s a threat in there.

 Woohyun shrugs and takes a drink.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for stealing Big Bang names for our bad guys but drugs in Kpop I couldn’t help myself. Honestly though I know barely anything about BB since their music isn’t really my thing so I’m making no claims about anyone I’m just stealing names.
> 
> Also honestly for obvious reasons I've got no idea how lucrative illegal activites are so let's just suspend all our disbelief at money claims please and thanks.


	2. Act II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning for this chapter: A character is drugged with a date rape drug against their will in this no form of assault happens and it's very vague in it's description but it requires a warning.

ACT TWO

 

Woohyun doesn’t feel right. He feels woozy, dizzy. Unexplainable and unfocused. There’s someone up in his personal space, touching him, but he doesn’t have the concentration to focus on the words that are being said. Instead he wants to giggle.

Somewhere, Woohyun knows he should push away the solid bodyand try and get himself the hell out of here. He just doesn’t have the energy.

Then Hoya is there, pushing the guy off and huh, Woohyun feels sort of cold now.

Hoya's spitting words at the guy, angry words, he’s got his eyebrows on, though Woohyun can’t really make heads or tails of the few words that filter through to him, “Saw him first,” and “get your own.”

Woohyun doesn’t understand but he does understand that there’s a new chest pushing against him, backing him into the wall. He doesn’t mind now, being nice and warm again, because this one belong to Hoya.

“Hi Hoya,” He mumbles feeling like his smile is going to crack his face straight into two pieces, words falling from his mouth faster than he can even attempt to think about them.

“Hi Woohyun,” Hoya says, or whispers, into his ear. His body is still pressing Woohyun into the wall and normally Woohyun knows he would hate that but right now he really cannot bring himself to care. Instead he giggles. Hoya curses quietly into his ear which just makes him giggle harder.

“Woohyun, do you know why we’re here?” Hoya asks him firmly.

“To stop the assholes.” Woohyun says, louder than Hoya would probably like judging by the way he’s hissing at him to shut up.

“Yes. Okay.” Hoya says, looking over his shoulder at something that makes his eyes narrow. “Woohyun, do you trust me?”

Woohyun knows deep down this is a question he would usually evade, but he doesn’t want to. Instead he just nods.

“Okay, then I’m sorry”, Hoya replies, looking uncharacteristically conflicted, which confuses Woohyun, not that he really has time to think before Hoya leans forward…

 

 

♧♧♧

  

 

He could have sworn he was with Hoya only seconds ago, but it's definitely Dongwoo’s cheery voice now, sounding muffled but close, gently urging him to unlock the door.

Woohyun hadn’t realised there was a locked door. Except oh, there is a locked door. He isn’t sure how to unlock it. Doesn’t have the energy. He tries to anyway, and he supposes he encounters some degree of success because the next thing he sees is Dongwoo's concerned face entering his field of vision.

“Sit down Woohyun,” Dongwoo urges him gently.

So Woohyun sits

“You should drink some water” Dongwoo tells him, holding out a glass of water that Woohyun obediently takes.

So Woohyun drinks.

“Why don’t you take your earbud out and give me your coms?” Dongwoo suggests again.

So Woohyun does.

“Try and sleep.” Dongwoo tells him, sounding…something. Woohyun can’t work out what the something is when his brain feels like mush.

It was a nice idea though so Woohyun sleeps.

 

  

♧♧♧

  

 

Woohyun wakes up feeling like shit.

His heart is pounding, like it’s going to fly right out of his chest and he feels nauseous in a way that is incredibly unpleasant. His brain feels wrapped in cotton and if he stops thinking about breathing he’s pretty sure he’s going to stop breathing.

It’s like a hangover, the flu and what he imagines a heart-attack feels like all wrapped up in one package he sorely wishes he could return to sender.

“Woohyun,” someone says, voice ringing out exceptionally loudly through the room. The room Woohyun is sure he’s never seen in his life. The panic is just starting to rise in him when a figure steps into his line of sight. It’s Sungjong.

“What happened?” He croaks, “Where am I?”

“Dongwoo’s bedroom.” Sungjong tells him matter-of-factly, “We’ll tell you everything later, promise.”

“Tell me now?” Woohyun says, forces the words past his throat with so much more effort than necessary. He tries to sit up, but he can’t get his hands, his arms, anything to do what his brain wants them too. He looks up at Sungjong with panicked eyes, only to get a sympathetic smile in return.

“Go back to sleep hyung,” That’s probably the first time in his life Sungjong has called him hyung.

He passes out again.

 

 

♧♧♧

  

 

When Woohyun next wakes it’s Dongwoo’s turn to play guard apparently. Or Dongwoo is just hanging around because he feels bad, both things are perfectly logical.

“What time is it?” Woohyun manages to groan.

“Uh, about 11pm, maybe.” Dongwoo says jumping up as soon as he realises Woohyun is awake. “You’ve been out for a while. Well like you woke up a couple of times, had what appeared to be a coherent conversation with Myungsoo at one point, but yeah it’s been almost 24 hours.”

“I don’t remember,” Woohyun shakes his heads. It’s an effort to form words, to think of words, something that’s never been a struggle for him. “I’m not sure what happened.”

He’s got an idea because it’s not like any run of the mill hangover he’s experienced, especially not when the only thing he had to drink was…

Yeah Woohyun is a dumbass.

“You were drugged.” Dongwoo tells him with the most apologetic look that Woohyun has ever seen on his face.

“I don’t remember,” Woohyun repeats because he doesn’t know what to say and he feels kind of shit.

Dongwoo doesn’t seem to mind though, “Yeah, Hoya said your probably wouldn’t.”

Because Hoya is the expert on drugging now. What isn’t he an expert on. Woohyun doesn’t have the energy or the will to put voice to that bitterness though so he just doesn’t.

When it becomes obvious that Woohyun isn’t going to say anything Dongwoo starts chattering, telling him how Hoya has apparently managed to get himself in as a potential fence for the targets, how Myungsoo had had his identity stolen so at least that has gone to plan. When he runs out of details about the case to tell he starts in on stories of the hijinks he’s missed in the 20 hours he’s been out. Woohyun isn’t sure how they’ve managed to get up to that much in such a short time (or why Sungjong and Sungyeol don’t just call a stalemate because they’re pretty much on level ground way above the rest of them when it comes to pranking) but Woohyun will admit, only to himself, that listening to him just babble is kind of vaguely soothing.

“Sorry Namu,” Dongwoo finally says though, looking so genuinely remorsefully for something that was not even close to his fault. Woohyun’s been waiting for the apology.

“Not your fault,” Woohyun groans. He would reassure Dongwoo but he kind of just wants to curl up and die. Sunggyu would probably be mad at him though if he died and left grifting to Myungsoo alone so he just clutches his knees closer to his chest and groans again.

“No but,” Dongwoo chews his lip for a second, frowning even further, “I thought you were being a bit over the top but I thought you were just acting drunk as part of the con for some reason, I didn’t realise you’d actually been drugged.” It’s true that Woohyun has the tendency to go slightly off script sometime so he can’t blame Dongwoo for thinking the way he had done.

Woohyun thinks Dongwoo probably looks more miserable than he feels at the moment and that’s an achievement in itself given the current situation.

“Not your fault.” Woohyun repeats.

“It was my job to look out for you.” Dongwoo isn’t looking at Woohyun now, rather he’s looking at the cheerful pattern quilted on the bedspread. “And I didn’t. I failed my job.”

Through the haze still clinging to his brain Woohyun is struck with the thought that that doesn’t sound like a very Dongwoo thing to say. Kim f.cking Sunggyu.

“Dongwoo,” Woohyun sighs, trying to sit up so he can get this conversation over with and go back to sleep. He manages to, somehow, despite his shaking hands, shaking arms, shaking everything. “Dongwoo, if Sunggyu told you that...”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Dongwoo says, moving closer to Woohyun hesitantly, and when he makes no move to flinch away, setting himself next to Woohyun at the headboard. Woohyun’s not going to lie, being able to lean against Dongwoo and not support his own weight is nice.

“You and Hoya were meant to look out for us. Hoya noticed something was wrong. Does it matter who did?” Woohyun asks. Of course it matters but his brain is fuzzy, he can’t find the right words, maybe he’d have been better off just not trying, going back to sleep and trying again later. If he ever sleeps again. “It just matters Hoya noticed, and apparently used the situation to his advantage.” Woohyun twists his mouth into a wry smile.

“That’s not really…” Dongwoo starts to say.

“To _our_ advantage.” Woohyun jumps in to say, because that’s not what he was trying to do, start any conflict- especially around Dongwoo.

“Yeah.” Dongwoo nods again, “He felt really bad about it Woohyun,” Dongwoo looks at him with imploring eyes, “I promise.”

Woohyun is not Sungjong and he’s definitely not Myungsoo so somehow he doubts that. “It doesn’t matter if he felt bad, it matters that he didn’t waste the opportunity.”

Dongwoo still looks supremely uncomfortable but there’s not really anything Woohyun is feeling inclined to do about that at the moment. “He did, he got in contact a couple of hours ago and he thinks he’s in.”

“Of course, weeks of work for me get me drugged, but then he can get in within minutes _because_ I’m drugged,” It’s a joke, mostly, Woohyun’s a little bitter at himself but no one else. Well no one except the assholes that drugged him, but they were on his shitlist anyway so nothing has really changed there.

“Woohyun,” Dongwoo says his name again. Right, no terrible attempts at humour, they offend Dongwoo, Woohyun makes a mental note, “Are you mad at Hoya?”

Woohyun is honestly completely blindsided by that question. It might be a side effect of the lovely drugs still running through his system though. “No? Why would I be mad at Hoya?” Woohyun asks. His brain is slow yes, but he can’t think of any reason he would he be mad at Hoya and not Dongwoo.

“Because he, you know,” Dongwoo waved his hair in the air in a very vague and kind of distressed looking motion.

“I’ve got no idea what he did Dongwoo,” Woohyun sighs resting his head against the wall with a distinct thump. He has the urge to bang it against the wall multiple times but not the energy, “As we’ve established, I remember nothing.”

“Oh,” Dongwoo says, “Well okay. But please don’t be mad at Hoya, he was trying his best. He was really mad and everything.” Dongwoo’s earnestness is going to kill him one of these days, and how Dongwoo manages to keep it here amongst everything is always going to be a source of confusion amongst the rest of them.

“He was probably mad because it was almost Myungsoo.” Woohyun says, stomach turning unpleasantly. Really unpleasantly. Oh, “Dongwoo,” he groans, “I think I’m going to-“

Before he can finish the sentence there’s suddenly a plastic bucket and he’s emptying the contents of his stomach into it.

Conversation can wait.

  

  

♧♧♧

 

  

Woohyun falls asleep again at some point, he knows he must have, because next thing he’s aware of he’s waking up again and this time he’s alone. Judging by the light streaming in through the grubby windows it must be at least the next day, closer to afternoon than morning judging by the way the light is streaming through the windows.

His body still aches, head pounding behind his eyesm but he feels slightly better. No longer like his heart is going to beat straight out of his chest and more like it’s just the worst hangover he’s ever had in his life (not that he has a huge frame of references for the hangover thing - drinking in excess is not a luxury that he allows himself, well, ever).

He sits up gingerly: it takes way more effort than usual but it’s not as hard as he remembers it being last night. He also vaguely remembers feeling like if he stopped making a conscious effort to breathe he wouldn’t be able to. Thankfully that seems to have stopped, though he’s now filled with that awful feeling that comes whenever he starts thinking about breathing.

He shakes his head to dislodge the thoughts except oops, so that blinding headache isn’t quite gone yet.

Instead he sits up on the bed, takes stock of the fact he had apparently gotten into someone’s sweats and tank top last night, before carefully standing up.

When it becomes clear that his legs aren’t going to collapse out from under him (just yet) he starts on his mission to find someone and get some more answers.

He heads for the kitchen, because as long as there’s someone here there’s at least one person in the kitchen and Woohyun knows they wouldn’t have left him alone.

As he gets closer he can hear voices muffled slightly be the door; so, there’s more than one person in there at least.

“You can’t just send him back in there,” He can hear Dongwoo saying quite emphatically as he gets closer to the closed kitchen door, “Back to the people that drugged him. What? To get drugged again? Hoya might not be there next time then what might happen?”

“We can’t just pull him out Dongwoo,” Sunggyu is using that tone of voice that says I’m letting you think I’m taking your opinion into consideration but really we’re just going to do what I want. “As soon as Hoya gets close, Woohyun just disappearing would be too suspicious. We can’t risk it.”

“It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.” Sungyeol is speaking now, and gods what are they doing? Having a meeting about Woohyun without him even being there. Typical of Sunggyu. “For someone to be drugged, realise they’ve been drugged and never go back to the place they assume they were drugged.” Dongwoo makes a triumphant noise, but then Sungyeol is continuing, “But Sunggyu is right it is a big risk.”

“I think you’re overestimating their intelligence,” Sungjong interjects lightly, sassy as always even when discussing serious things.

“They don’t need to be intelligent to be suspicious. They’re reckless and that’s more dangerous.” There’s a bit of bite to Sunggyu voice now, Woohyun has no idea how long they’ve been having this conversation: it could be five minutes, it could be hours.

“You saw Woohyun last night,” Dongwoo is speaking again, imploringly this time, though Woohyun’s not sure exactly who this is directed at, “You can’t want to send him back there.”

There’s a long pause, and Woohyun really wishes he could see everyone right now because body language would help his poor brain so much at the moment (though he’s aware enough to know the conversation would stop if they knew he was eavesdropping so he stays in place), before Hoya is speaking. Of course it’s Hoya, he was the only other one there at the club last night, “I think you should ask Woohyun what he wants to do.”

That is the last thing Woohyun was expecting Hoya to say.

“You want to base a plan on Woohyun’s opinion?” Sunggyu is using that tone of voice he has that means he’s about three seconds away from melodramatically declaring he’s going to quit his life of crime and return to a normal and safe life. As if he wasn’t the one that started this whole thing and as if his entire purpose in life wasn’t his bizarre benevolent god complex.

“I think how well Woohyun is able to deal with this incident will affect the plan,” Hoya is speaking slowly, like he’s measuring each word before uttering it. That’s not Hoya’s normal way of doing things, he doesn’t speak all that often still but when he does he always comes across as impulsive and sharp.

“If he can, then obviously he should.” Dongwoo starts to make a protesting noise, as if he’d expected Hoya to do anything but put the plan first, “But if he can’t, if he’s too affected by this then obviously he could blow everything and just playing it off as him being scared away is probably less risky.”

Woohyun kind of wants to scoff at that, burst into the room and tell Hoya that he’s fine and he can do his job fine, nothing had even happened. He doesn’t though because he’s still not feeling at his best, and for an argument with Hoya he needs to be at his best.

“Well how do you suppose we determine whether or not he’s up for it then?” Sunggyu asks, sounding less downright hostile than he did before but not completely pleased.

You fucking ask me,  Woohyun wants to scream. He’s surprised to hear Hoya echoing his thoughts almost exactly, “You ask Woohyun - let him decide.”

“When has Woohyun ever known his own limits?” Sungyeol scoffs. That’s rude, particularly coming from Sungyeol.

He’s expecting Sunggyu to jump in now, remind everyone that he’s in charge - and really he needs to announce himself to them soon before he’s caught - but it’s Hoya that speaks this time. “We have to trust him this time.” Woohyun’s job is basically getting information he’s not meant to have but right now he’s feeling so supremely uncomfortable, “Because the job is important but giving Woohyun some choice in what happens to him - some agency - is more important right now.”

Woohyun swallows uncomfortably, listening to the long silence in the room and just hoping someone says something else soon. He really needs to just go in, announce his presence, but he’s not sure even he could keep the fact he’s been listening in off his face.

“Woohyun,” A cheerful voice calls out from behind him. It must be Myungsoo, the only one he hadn’t heard during his eavesdropping session. He hadn’t realised he wasn’t in the room though because it’s not too unusual for him to not say anything, he’s usually pretty agreeable to most plans and will only really speak up when he vehemently disagrees with something (or to back up Hoya).

“Myungsoo,” Woohyun turns towards him with a forced smile. Myungsoo must be able to tell, he’s a grifter himself after all, but he doesn’t comment on it, just shoots Woohyun a large, more genuine smile.

“Are you feeling better now?” Myungsoo asks him as he walks towards him, apparently seeing nothing wrong with Woohyun’s lurking.

“Well, slightly,” Woohyun says with a wry smile. He still feels slightly unsteady, and like his heart could potentially burst from his chest and just smack Myungsoo in the face, but considering how he felt when he woke up this morning it’s progress, “I’ve still felt better, I’ve had killer hangovers that have been worse though.” He lies, because Myungsoo has that frowny sad face on.

“I’m glad.” Myungsoo nods, stopping in front of him.

“Umm,” Woohyun bites his lip. “Do you happen to know what I was drugged with? By any chance?” It’s a question he’s been dying to ask, he wants to know. Myungsoo’s the only one that he will ask though because he trusts Myungsoo will just tell him without an interrogation about why he wants to know or refusing to tell him for his own good.

“We didn’t really do a blood test or anything since it didn’t seem important at the time,” Myungsoo says, smile dimming slightly . It’s fair enough, they had a job to save and his sorry ass to look after “Hoya-hyung did say he thinks it was probably GHB based on past experience though.” Myungsoo adds.

“Based on past experience” Woohyun mutters to himself under his breath before shooting Myungsoo a smile. “Thanks Myungsoo,”

“As long as you’re feeling better,” Myungsoo nods, “I know it can take a while to feel better like good again but better not as bad is still better.” He nods, before frowning. He’s probably confused himself, it happens more than one would think.

“Feeling not as bad is a good way to put it.” Woohyun nods. Not sure what else to say or do here. Why is his brain still so foggy, he knows he’d usually be able to find the perfect thing to say, he just can’t think.

“Is everyone else in there?” Myungsoo nods towards the closed door that Woohyun is still very obviously lurking by.

“I’m not sure.” Woohyun blatantly lies, “I was just coming looking for someone, since I’d been so cruelly abandoned on my death bed, when you appeared.”

Myungsoo still doesn’t call his lie, just nods. This is why Myungsoo could probably be his favourite. One day. “Okay, they’re probably in there.” He says despite the fact they both know the others are in there. Where else would they be.  There’s a couple more seconds of silence before Myungsoo laughs, “are you coming?”

“Yes, right.” Woohyun physically shakes his head again, hoping it’ll dislodge some of the funk from his brain - as it did before it just makes him dizzy.

Myungsoo smiles at him again, wrapping an arm around his shoulder in a very typical Myungsoo move - though much gentler than he usually is with his overflowing affection, and leads him towards the kitchen door.

Which of course chooses that moment to fling open, nearly knocking Myungsoo and Woohyun off their feet. Nearly because at the last second Myungsoo manages to drag them just out of the way, almost stumbling over thanks to Woohyun’s late reactions.

Sungyeol is standing in the doorway, grinning at them, “Oops, I missed.” He says with a nonchalant shrug.

“Sungyeol, not the time.” Sunggyu’s voice barks at them from inside the room. Woohyun can see the look on his face in his head. Floating right at the front of his mind, not really the first clear thought of the day that he’d been hoping for.

“I was just on the way to see if you’d woken up yet, Sleeping Beauty.” Sungyeol tells him gleefully, ignoring Sunggyu as always. Woohyun’s not sure if he’s just imagining the exasperated sigh Sunggyu is surely letting out, or if it’s so loud he can actually hear it. “Unfortunately you have, if you hadn’t we were going to send Dongwoo to get you.” Sungyeol looks legitimately mournful at the prank he’s probably had ruined.

Woohyun’s pretty sure if Dongwoo had been in charge of getting him he’d have been carried downstairs which is something his pride probably couldn’t have handled. Especially because Hoya and Sungyeol would certainly never have let him live it down.

“Very unfortunate for you apparently.” Woohyun says dryly as Myungsoo leads him into the room, past Sungyeol and deposits him in the armchair If it had been anyone else Woohyun probably would have gotten annoyed at being babied, but honestly that was how Myungsoo treated everyone (except Hoya and Sunggyu for vastly different reasons) always.

“Alright then,” Woohyun says, once he’s sitting comfortably, Dongwoo having come over to perch on the arm of his chair like a hovering mother hen - taking over Woohyun’s role, Sungyeol jokes. “Where are we at.”

Sunggyu exchanges a quick look with Sungyeol, one that Woohyun cannot bother to try reading. Instead he just huffs out an annoyed sound, “Please just tell me, I’m fine.”

“You were drugged less than 48 hours ago.” Sunggyu points out with a raised eyebrow, “How is that fine?” The thing that annoys Woohyun most of all, is the fact he’d overheard Sunggyu not five minutes ago saying Woohyun would have to be fine to continue the job, but now to Woohyun’s face he’s going to pretend to feel more than cursory concern for his wellbeing.

Don’t get Woohyun wrong, Sunggyu is probably concerned for his safety, maybe even separately from what it means for the team, but he’s concerned about the job more. Kim Sunggyu is the kind of person that’s not going to change his priorities because he believes in the ‘greatest good for the greatest number of people’.

Woohyun chooses not to reply to him, decides to ask instead “What’s the plan moving forward? I’m assuming in the 40 hours I’ve been useless and Hoya’s been getting chummy with these guys you’ll have come up with one.”

Sunggyu raises his eyebrows and Dongwoo looks guilty, he really hadn’t been lying when he’d said Sunggyu didn’t want him telling Woohyun. Ridiculous.

No one answers him. “Would you stop looking at me like I’m going to break in half.” Woohyun scoffs,  “I’m fine. I’m not thinking about it. It doesn’t matter. Everyone let it go and let’s move on with the job.”

Dongwoo looks even more concerned and disappointed somehow, Hoya’s mouth twists in a way that Woohyun can’t read. Sungjong’s face is as impassive as ever and Sunggyu’s still frowning. As is to be expected then, except maybe from Hoya.

“Alright.” Sunggyu says, sounding disapproving - though when doesn't he, “Hoya’s set himself up as a potential fence,” Of course he had, because Hoya was too tough looking to be anything but strong and badass.

“That was quick,” Woohyun says mildly. He knows this of course, remembers Dongwoo telling him last night (and it’s a relief more than he’d care to admit he remembers pretty much that entire conversation).

“He used the opportunity presented well.” Sunggyu tells him. One second Sunggyu is seriously concerned for his health and the next he’s calling Woohyun being drugged an opportunity. It doesn’t even surprise him anymore. “How we move on depends on you.”

“Depends on me?” Woohyun is usually extremely good at pretending he hasn’t been eavesdropping, at pulling a fast one over his ‘teammates’ on the rare occasion he choses to. Given the circumstances he’s not sure how well he’s doing today. No one calls him on it so he moves on.

He’s not expecting Sunggyu to ask him so bluntly, it’s not in Sunggyu’s character. Of course he hadn’t counted on Sungyeol taking the lead here and asking “Do you think you can go back in?”

“Of course.” Woohyun doesn’t even have a chance to think before he’s answering.

“Woohyun,” Sunggyu’s back in charge, “Think about it. Don’t let your pride answer for you.” Woohyun bristles at what Sunggyu’s suggesting but doesn’t get a chance to protest because Sunggyu is still talking, “If you are honestly okay to continue the job, continue your cover and go back to the people that drugged you without letting them  know that you know. If you’re emotionally okay with that and you think you can keep your cover then obviously that’s the best option.”

“Have I ever broken cover before?” Woohyun means to sound reasonable and calm. Instead his voice comes out sounding petulant and small. It’s not doing anything to prove that he’s okay.

“You’ve never been in a situation like this before.” Dongwoo points out, “Which is totally okay, if you can’t do it Woohyun that’s totally okay,” Dongwoo is probably going to explode in earnestness one day, “Right Sunggyu?”

“Right.” Sunggyu nods, “If you can’t do it, for whatever reason, then let us know and we’ll change the plan. You don’t have to go back because frankly if you go back in and find out you can’t keep your cover then we’re fucked.”

Typical Sunggyu, presenting you with options but bludgeoning you over the head with the option he wants you to chose.

“No pressure or anything, right?” Woohyun asks dryly, more amused by Sunggyu’s attitude than offended by the suggestion he can’t do it.

“No pressure in what you decide,” Sunggyu tells him honestly, “But we’ve got to figure out how we’re approaching this soon, so pressure to make it.”

“I can do it.” Woohyun tells him, pleased with how his voice is steadier this time.

“Sunggyu didn’t mean you had to decide this second,” Sungyeol tells him dryly. “Well maybe he did, but the rest of us are telling you that you have a couple of hours to think.”

“It’s okay. The concern is appreciated.” It genuinely is, especially considering how pear shaped everything had gone earlier this year, despite how smothering it is, “But I’ve dealt with worse, I promise.”

It’s a lie. He’s good at his job, he’s really good, and before hooking up with Sunggyu’s team he’s never even had a gun pointed at him; he gets in, he gets out, he gets what he wants with no one any the wiser until he’s gone. Still if it’s a lie he can get them to believe, especially since many of them probably have dealt with worse in their time, then there’s a huge chance they’re going to stop babying him and just get on with the job.

Thankfully they seem to believe him, “Okay,” Sunggyu nods, shooting Dongwoo a look that clearly screams I told you so. “Woohyun is going back in.”

“You could try and sound slightly less smug about it,” Sungjong points out serenely, “It makes you seem like a megalomaniac villain.”

“That’s exactly what he is.” Hoya speaks up for the first time since Woohyun entered the room. In fact he’s hardly looked at Woohyun. That’s interesting, Woohyun should explore that. Later.

Dongwoo cackles at that so hard he almost falls of the arm of the seat, whilst Myungsoo hides his giggles into his hand.

Sunggyu blinks at them, looking incredibly unimpressed at their antics, “If we could focus.”

“Yes dad,” Sungyeol salutes him sarcastically, and then things devolve back into their usual chaotic state.

Woohyun is glad, another second of the stifling concern and he might have gone insane.

 

 

♧♧♧

 

 

Of course they don’t let Woohyun go back for another couple of days, they say it’s to sell his cover and avoid raising suspicion, but Woohyun imagines they’re probably watching to make sure he doesn’t have a delayed breakdown or something.

Dongwoo had also insisted that Woohyun spends most of his days at the base, though at least he’s allowed to go home to sleep, which is how he finds himself lying in the living room watching some obnoxious cooking shown on the nine screen set-up Sungyeol has going on.

Thankfully he’s mostly been left to his own devices, Hoya working his cover (Woohyun hasn’t seen him since the ’attempted intervention’ as he’s taken to calling it in his head), Dongwoo somewhere close to Hoya in case he was needed, Sunggyu listening intently over their coms and goodness knew where Sungjong was; probably planning or executing some sort of revenge on Sungyeol.  Sungyeol was sitting in the corner of the room paying attention to nothing but his laptop, or so it seemed.

It’s as Woohyun is watching Gordon Ramsay tear into someone for their mayonnaise looking like custard or something that Myungsoo walks in. His eyes flit between Sungyeol and Myungsoo before he sits down next to Woohyun, picking his legs up and dropping them in his lap.

Myungsoo is a touchy person but this is new, having it directed at Woohyun, especially when his favourite target is already in the room.

“Why is Sunggyu refusing to talk to Hoya?” Myungsoo asks. The question is probably directed at Sungyeol since Woohyun didn’t even know Sunggyu was refusing to talk to Hoya, but Myungsoo’s expectant eyes are fixed on him.

“I thought Sunggyu was on coms with Hoya at the moment.” Woohyun questions. Myungsoo seems so sure of it so Woohyun’s not doubting him. He is curious how that would even work though.

“He’s addressing Dongwoo but saying the things he wants Hoya to hear,” Myungsoo explains with a shrug.

Woohyun stares at him, “That is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever head.” Woohyun will be the first to admit sometimes he might let his pride get a little out of hand, but never to this extent. At least he assumes it's a pride thing.

“They got in an argument the night you got drugged.” Sungyeol explains, “After Hoya got home from the club.”

“Oh that’s right.” Myungsoo says perking up, “I thought they sorted that?”

Sungyeol throws a pillow at Myungsoo’s head without looking up, “If by sorted out you mean Hoya walked away to save Sunggyu the stroke he was trying about to induce in himself than sure, that sounds about right.”

“Don’t exaggerate.” Woohyun chides without heat. Mostly because he’s kind of interested in details. Hoya’s never one to keep quiet when he sees a problem in the plan, he’s about the only one, but he’s also pretty laid back and snarky about it.

“He’s not. They were both practically red in the face.” Myungsoo tells him solemnly.

“What were they arguing about?” Woohyun can’t help asking, giving up the pretence of indifference he’d barely been managing to hold onto.

Sungyeol and Myungsoo exchange looks before Myungsoo says carefully “When hyung was doing his, getting in thing, he found out that date rape drugs are kind of their standard method of operation.”

“Right,” Woohyun says, pursing his lips.

“Sunggyu got really angry, rang up the client to tear them a new one for not telling him they used drugs to steal identities,” Sungyeol fills in the details, “But of course Hoya got all high and mighty about how this is what comes from anonymous clients, and he told Sunggyu that anonymous clients were a bad idea. It was kind of funny, to begin with.”

“And then Sunggyu got defensive because of _this_ job,” Woohyun can fill in the blanks. Perhaps there was some sort of guilt on his behalf, perhaps he was still worried for whatever client it is he’s projecting; Woohyun can’t really know because he wasn’t there.

“Basically.” Sungyeol nods.

“Hoya was saying like all this stuff,” Myungsoo starts, shifting himself sideways slightly so he's facing Woohyun now, cupping his ankle with his hand, “Like how if we hadn’t rushed this and taken the time to investigate properly, if Sunggyu stopped being so blind and hasty on this job none of it would have happened.” Myungsoo says like he’s sharing the juiciest gossip he’s ever heard; maybe it is. It’s definitely the closest to conflict they’ve had since he joined them.

“He wasn’t wrong.” Woohyun says carefully, since he knows Sungyeol has the same thoughts and Myungsoo won’t spill. “I wasn’t there, obviously,” Sungyeol snorts at that, “But I can imagine Hoya said it in a way Sunggyu was never going to listen to.”

“He was right and he was criticising Sunggyu,” Sungyeol shrugs, “Nothing would have made Sunggyu listen.”

“I take it that means Sunggyu still refuses to reveal the identity of the client?” Woohyun asks with a cocked eyebrow.

“Of course he does,” Sungyeol snorts.

“I’m pretty sure Hoya was about to burst a blood vessel or sock him in the face, when he kept refusing.” Myungsoo interjects, “He was really angry we let this happen.”

Of course he was, and they all know why. Woohyun doesn’t say that though, there’s no _point_ in saying it. Instead he asks, “Dongwoo said you got your ‘identity’ taken as well, I take it they didn’t drug you though.”

If they had Sunggyu wouldn’t have been able to stand against Hoya that’s for sure, “Yeah,” Myungsoo shrugs, “Maybe they decided I was an easy enough target.”

“Or maybe they decided to have some fun to drugging Woohyun at the last minute,” Sungyeol says darkly. They all pause, knowing what that means.

“Yeah,” Woohyun says, fixing his eyes back to the television which is now showing some bizarre animated tv show.

He doesn’t say it but he knows how lucky he was that Hoya was there.


	3. Act III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (+ the next) have been finished since May but I've barely touched the last chapter since well May so I was trying to wait till I got that finished to update it. That didn't happen but then I had to rework a couple of things to remove a mention of JYJ (that if I ever develop this fully would have been a sort of key plot point) because given the situation it felt really, really wrong.

ACT THREE

 

It’s not until four days after he’s drugged, or the ‘unexpected incident’ as Sunggyu has taken to calling it, before Woohyun is allowed to return and get stuck back in.

Usually Sunggyu rushes things where they shouldn’t be rushed and now he’s being paranoid and holding them up. Maybe he’s just trying to spite Woohyun (Or Hoya).

“Okay,” Sungyeol says, pressing the earbud into his hand. They’d refused to give him his coms back before out of some misguided belief he would go renegade.He wouldn’t, Woohyun may be used to working alone but he’s not that reckless, “So last seconds without Sunggyu in your ear, how does it feel.”

“He’s in your ear so it’s not like it makes a difference,” Woohyun snorts.

“Nuh-uh,” Sungyeol twists his head and taps his ear, showing Woohyun there’s nothing in there. Not that Woohyun can really tell, the things are designed so you can’t tell with a glance because that would defeat the purpose, but he takes Sungyeol on his word for it.

“Is there a reason we’re not on coms? Are we having one last secret meeting behind his back?” Woohyun asks, getting it situated in his ear. He didn’t miss the damn thing, it’s not the most comfortable, but he did miss the sense of security that came with it. Working in a team has ruined him, “Any last minute confessions?” .

“No,” Sungyeol shrugs, shooting him those appraising eyes that Woohyun isn’t fond of; it reminds him too much of what it feels like to be the one giving people that look, “Just, don’t fight Hoya okay?”

“I wasn’t going to _fight_ Hoya,” Woohyun says feeling offended at the accusation. Why would Sungyeol even suggest that?

Then Sungyeol changes the subject so quickly Woohyun gets mental whiplash“Have you ever done something on a job you _really_ weren’t proud of, that you were so sure wasn’t right but you did it anyway because you thought the alternative was worse?”

“I’m sure you can answer that question for me.” Woohyun answers as he tries to process the change in direction.

“Oh I can tell which of your jobs _I_ would have had that moment is,” Sungyeol shrugs, consistently shameless about his blatant disregard of privacy; especially when it comes to his team mate, “But I don’t know about you, some nameless members of this team think that maybe you’re an android. Or a Sherlock Holmes level sociopath”

“Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a sociopath.” Woohyun corrects absently.

“Not the point,” Woohyun isn’t looking at Sungyeol but he’s sure that he’s rolling his eyes.

“Okay, yes I know what you mean. I’ve experienced it before, I’m a real boy with real emotions.” Woohyun tells him, turning back to face him.

“Thank you Pinocchio,” Sungyeol says dryly, “Hoya’s going to follow your lead obviously since you are the expert here, but just don’t be afraid to follow his okay.”

Woohyun has, potentially for the first time in his life, lost track of what exactly they’re talking about. It must be lingering after effects of the drugs. It’s the only explanation. “I’m not _afraid_ to follow anyone else’s lead.” Woohyun scoffs. He’s followed Myungsoo once or twice, and changed gear mid grift before due to Sunggyu’s nagging in his ear.

“Okay.” Sungyeol says as if this he was expecting the answer, “Then don’t be a prideful asshole, more accurate?”

“Fuck you.” Woohyun scoffs, reaching up to flick his coms on. He knows Sungyeol isn’t going to continue the conversation with everyone else listening since he insisted on having to off coms.

“I’m just saying,” Sungyeol says with a shrug before turning his attention back to whatever vitally important thing he has up and running on his laptop right now.

Sometimes Woohyun thinks, despite appearances, that Sungyeol is actually the smartest of them all.

 

♢♢♢

 

Woohyun has to wait until he gets word that Hoya is in position, but after that he’s off. Back in his element; back in control.

He steels himself, makes sure his posture and manner are suitable for someone who’s just come off days of being drugged without knowing he’s been drugged (to be honest he doesn’t so much have to act here as he does _stop_ acting) before he’s making his way into the club.

As he knows from listening to Hoya, all three of their marks are in the club and no one else seems to be around. Perfect.

“Hello,” He calls out as he enters, as if he’s not sure there’s anyone there or not, “Anyone here?”

“Ahh, Minjun.” Taeyang says popping up in his line of sight without notice. Woohyun fakes a flinch, “We were wondering where you’d been.”

“We were starting to think you’d run off on us,” Dongwook says from the background, menacingly. Woohyun is starting to think ‘just getting scared and not handing in a resignation’ would not have been as clean of an exist strategy as Sunggyu had claimed.

“Sorry for not being around,” He tells them all, trying to look as innocent and guileless as possible, “I felt really awful after I last saw you on Friday night,” He pretends he can’t see the incredibly suspicious glances they’re sending each other, “I think I got a really nasty case of the flu and I didn’t want to get anyone else sick.”

Woohyun doubts there is anyone on the _planet_ stupid enough to confuse getting roofied with the flu, and yet these idiots buy his excuse hook, line and sinker. Nodding and making sympathetic noises. “That’s alright Minjun, your health should be your first priority after all.” Seungri tells him with a fake approximation of concern. Woohyun fights the urge to laugh in his face.

“I feel bad,” he says instead, “Did I mess up your plans?” Finding the right balance is hard. Too eager and they won’t believe he’s a valuable asset. Too self assured and he’s not a viable option to turn into a fall guy. Then again these guys seem so legitimately stupid Woohyun’s not sure it matters either way. How they’ve managed to amass such a large drug empire is anyone’s guess.

“Not at all,” Seungri reassures him, “In fact in your absence we’ve come across a more lucrative opportunity,”

“More lucrative?” Woohyun has to ask with widened eyes, as if he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Don’t worry about it,” Taeyang tells him dismissively, with a warning glare to Seungri. Can’t have the patsy know too much, can’t have him snitching anything important to the police when you eventually let him take the fall, “But there is someone we want you to meet.”

“Someone new?” Woohyun asks. As if everyone you _meet_ isn’t someone new. Honestly how does Myungsoo not go insane from playing dumb so often?

“Yeah, you could say that.” Dongwool says as if he’s in on some very stupid joke that no one else is. Woohyun is honestly disgusted.

“Is that my cue?” Hoya strolls in nonchalantly, smirk plastered on his face. Hoya smirks a lot, but there’s something incredibly unnerving about the one he’s sporting right now. It makes Woohyun appreciate his regular smirk a little bit more, in some weird way, “It sounds like a cue for a dramatic entrance, and even if it wasn’t I was getting sick of hanging in your back room, we have important things we could be doing.”

“Tony,” Taeyang drawls sounding incredibly unimpressed, “Come and meet our friend Minjun.”

Hoya practically stalks towards Woohyun, eyeing him like he’d eye a piece of meat. Woohyun doesn’t have to try very hard to fake the shudder he lets roll through his body. Not for the first time he thinks he he’s very glad Hoya is on their side. More or less. “Hi there,” Hoya reaches forward to shake his hand. It’s firm, but he also makes it very obvious the way he slides his fingers across Woohyun’s wrist.

“Hi,” Woohyun forces a blush, keeps the rest of his face impassive. Notices out of the corner of the eye how all three of them relax visibly, now his reaction has ‘confirmed’ that Minjun really doesn’t remember anything about being drugged.

“Where have you been keeping such a pretty face,” Hoya drawls, with hooded eyes. Woohyun would laugh, except it’s really not funny in this context.

“I’m, I really don’t..” Woohyun stutters, forcing his blush redder and hiding his eyes from Hoya’s.

“I bet you don’t.” Hoya says sleazily. Woohyun has to force himself to look confused and not incredibly disgusted, especially with the way the other three titter in the background, like they’ve heard the best joke on the planet. 

“Alright, you can flirt with Minjun till your hearts content later,” Taeyang is still smirking, “For now, you have friends to introduce us to and he needs to stay here and watch the merchandise for us.”

Woohyun nods eagerly, still avoiding Hoya’s gaze that he can feel on him. He lets Seungri  leave him with a set of instructions, all the while making it very clear he’s avoiding Hoya’s gaze out of embarrassment, taking chances to sneak glances at him once or twice, only to act flustered to find Hoya staring back.

This goes on for five minutes before Taeyang is ushering the rest of them out, leaving Woohyun with a stern warning to let no one anywhere near the ‘merchandise’ before they’re gone.

There’s a long silence, once the four of them have left, for Woohyun to catch his breath and his thoughts, before Sunggyu’s voice is filtering over their com system. “There’s been a change in plans. We’re going to get them locked up.” he says, sounding as absolutely appalled as Woohyun feels.

Woohyun has never been more glad to hear Sunggyu change a plan in the middle of a job.

 

♢♢♢

 

“Pearls?” Sungjong asks skeptically once the seven of them are all together again the next morning, “Your big plan to get these assholes arrested is pearls?”

“You want me to convince them to move their cash in pearls?” Hoya echoes, eyebrow raised, “Woohyun would have trouble doing that,” Woohyun is slightly offended, “How the hell do you want _me_ to?” Woohyun’s ego is appeased by the backhanded compliment.

“Just get Woohyun to talk you through it, over coms or something,” Sunggyu shrugs, as if it’s that easy. As if reading body language and the atmosphere and making split second decisions isn’t the most important part of what he does. Sure just talk him through it over coms. “That’s hardly the sticking point.”

“Where are we going to find Twelve million dollars worth of pearls?” Dongwoo asks curiously, as if it’s not a problem just a question that Sunggyu clearly already has the answer to. Having that much faith in anything, especially Kim Sunggyu, must be nice.

“We don’t need twelve million dollars worth,” Sunggyu answers.

“They’re not going to give anyone any money until they see all the merchandise.” Hoya tells them with a sigh.

“Hoya’s right.” Woohyun chimes in, the two of them the ones with the personal experience with them, “I mean, don’t get me wrong they’ve proved themselves to be incredibly stupid time and time again, but they’ve been in this business long enough they’re not going to hand over the money till they’ve eyeballed all the goods.”

“Again, not a problem.” Sunggyu says. One of these days he’s going to realise this cryptic bullshit just serves to make these meetings three times longer than they need to be, and everyone else three times more annoyed. Hopefully. “What’s really a problem is getting our hands on a train.”

“What about the fact he’s seen both our grifters?” Hoya asks.

“Why are you always so negative.” Woohyun can’t help but ask even though he _knows_ Hoya has a point.

“I’m not negative, I’m trying to avoid being blindsided again,” Hoya responds, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff. “You and Myungsoo have both been seen and targeted so you can’t pull double duty, I’m already in, and no offence Dongwoo but, you’d be a disaster.”

Woohyun has to snort at that, but Dongwoo looks unfazed, “None taken, it’s true and I’d rather not.” Woohyun gets the feeling that Dongwoo really dislikes the grifting side of things. Just a vague feeling though he’s not at all vocal about it.

“Don’t tell us that Sunggyu’s actually going to _do_ something for once?” Sungjong suggested cheekily. They all know it’s a rare day, a day going catastrophically wrong, before Sunggyu will step in. The Dawn job is still the only time Woohyun can remember.

“No, Sungyeol can handle it.” Sunggyu says with a smirk, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back to observe everyone’s reactions, “It’ll do him good to see sunlight for once.”

It’s the solution  that Woohyun was expecting Sunggyu to come up with, it probably makes the most sense, but he’s still skeptical about it.

“We want criminal protege changing the game with a slightly mad plan, not full on Cruella de Ville.”  Hoya says dryly.

“Oh, I’ll remember you said that next time you need help turning your phone on,” Sungyeol responds with narrowed eyes.

“Sungyeol can do it,” Sunggyu repeats, with a frown, “His more flamboyant style fits this roll anyway.” Sungyeol starts muttered something under his breathe about how he’s going to hack the phones of everyone disrespecting him this way but Sunggyu ignores him, “Like I said, I have everything under control. The only thing I need to work out is how to get a train. I’m open to suggestions.” Sunggyu’s asking for suggestions - this job is getting weirder and weirder at every possible second.

“Oh, that’s easy.” Myungsoo says cheerfully, gesturing between himself and Hoya “We know a guy.”

“They know a guy,” Sungyeol mutters under his breathe, “When don’t they know a guy.”

Woohyun wholeheartedly agrees.

 

♢♢♢

 

Whilst Myungsoo gets in contact with whoever the mysterious train guy is, Woohyun and Hoya set the new plan in motion.

“I’m telling you,” Hoya’s whispers furtively into his mobile phone, positioned so it looks like he’s hiding off in the corner “This is where the money as at.”

Woohyun stands just out of the camera shot, making faces at Hoya to distract him, because throwing Hoya off his game would be an amazing achievement.

Hoya pauses, “Well no obviously these guys aren’t going to go for it they’re not innovative enough, but it’s a serious opportunity for more forward thinking people such as yourself. Valuable; not as conspicuous as diamonds but easier to move than cash.”

That’s Woohyun’s cue. He walks into the shot, projecting as much nervousness as he can manage,

“Tony.” He greets in a way that’s scared but also challenging, “What are you doing.”

Hoya holds up a silencing finger to Woohyun, and it’s not pure acting that makes him so affronted. They hadn’t discussed this.

Hoya takes a minute or two to finish up his fake phone call, before turning to Woohyun and shooting him that creepy appraising look “Minjun,” he says, in that low skeevy voice, “What can I do for you.”

“Who were you talking to?” Woohyun asks, sticking his chin out defiantly.

(Hoya had of course been talking at Sungyeol, the original plan had been to have him talking into a phone on silent, but apparently he didn’t know how to put his phone on silent.

Woohyun still doesn’t know how he survived so successfully on his own.)

“Oh no one for you to worry your pretty little head over,” Another leer. Personally Woohyun thinks Hoya is overselling it, but why should anyone listen to _him_ about grifting. “Just an associate.”

“Sounds to me like you’re cutting us out of a deal, taking us for a ride.” Woohyun says.

“Oh, is that what you think,” Hoya says softly, stepping up into his space, “Well it sounds to me like you think you have more influence here than you do.”

Woohyun swallows, “You’re cutting my bosses out of a good deal.”

“I’m not,” Hoya tells him, somehow managing to get even closer. This is incredibly unnecessary. “I’m just knowing what my clients situation calls for, and this is not for you.”

“Why are you the judge of that,” Woohyun looks up defiantly before averting his eyes shyly.

“That’s my job.” Hoya says, reaching out to pat (or really stroke because Hoya is as subtle as a brick) his shoulder, condescendingly, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” Hoya says stepping back.

“It’s my job.” Woohyun says shakily as Hoya starts to walk away.

“Don’t bother your bosses with this,” Hoya calls over his shoulder, before disappearing out of site. “I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it.”

The red light on the lone surveillance camera out the back that records sound blinks.

 

♢♢♢

 

Of course as per the plan Woohyun waits about fifteen minutes in view of the camera, trying to look conflicted before going off to find Seungri.

“Minjun,” He says suspiciously, “What are yo doing here so early.”

“Wanted to be useful.” Woohyun shrugs twisting his fingers together before blurting out, “I think Tony is ripping us off.”

“Ripping us off?” Seungri says, raising an eyebrow skeptically, “And why would he be doing that.”

Woohyun knows that Seungri is doubting him, that’s why the conversation took place in front of the security camera. He also knows part of the reason why they _trust_ Hoya so much is because they think that he … assaulted Woohyun. It makes him sick; it’s something he has to make more of an effort that usual to push to the back of his brain.

It also makes him more determined than usual to nail these assholes to the wall.

Minjun wouldn’t know any of this though, he just thinks Seungri and Taeyang are suspicious people. “Yeah, he was in the corner near where the cider is kept being all secretive on his phone, talking about how you guys weren’t creative or smart enough to go for some new thing he had going.”

Seungri narrows his eyes suspiciously, “Near the cider you say?” He asks. Woohyun nods.

“Go and get Taeyang and send him to me,” He tells Woohyun authoritatively. Woohyun tries not to smile, knowing his about to watch the tapes and does as he’s told, hovering outside the door and listening to make sure everything is going to plan.

Sure enough it is, and within ten minutes they’ve summoned Hoya to their office and the four of them are standing around.

“So, Tony,” Taeyang says dangerously, “It seems to me that you’re trying to con us.”

“Excuse me?” Hoya says, looking suitably confused and annoyed.

Taeyang looks like he’s about to say something else but Seungri cuts him off, and simply plays the footage from their argument. Woohyun is pleased to notice that Hoya doesn’t look nearly as awkward and over the top as Woohyun dreaded.

“So, what do you have to say for yourself?” Seungri says once the footage has stopped.

“That’s all?” Hoya laughed coldly, “As I was saying to your little lapdog there,” he shoots Woohyun a look, “I know you guys are into more traditional methods of moving money. It isn’t something I thought you’d be interested in.”

“Well clearly you don’t know us very well.” Taeyang all but growls. Honestly what is this guys problem.

“What is the opportunity?” Seungri asks in a way that’s placating but also slightly dangerous, “Let us be the judge.”

“You mean Minjun didn’t tell you that too,” Hoya curls his lip in distaste, “Nice little snitch you’ve got on your hands.”

“I’m not snitching on you,” Woohyun shrugs defiantly, now he has his ‘bosses’ to back him up, “It’s my job.” And with that he can see he’s convinced them of his loyalty. Too easy.

“And here I was thinking we had a bond,” Hoya smiles sardonically at Woohyun before telling the other two, “Pearls.”

“Pearls?” Taeyang asks skeptically, “First he’s keeping things, now he’s playing with us, I don’t think I like doing business with you.” Woohyun’s half surprised he’s not waving a gun in the air or something equally as dramatic.

“Pearls are good, easy to move without suspicion especially if you have the right dealer.”

“Like I’m going to believe this bullshit.” Taeyang scoffs.

“No,” Seungri says, surprising them all, “No he’s right, I’ve heard about this. It’s rare, but he’s right if you have a dealer and valuable enough pearls they’re easy to move because they’re small, and not as suspicious to be travelling with as things like diamonds.”

Woohyun tries not to show how surprised he feels. That’s good though, easier for them, and perhaps the first bit of good luck they’ve had this case.

“I suppose you know the right dealer then?” Seungri asks Hoya.

“I know _a_ guy,” Hoya shrugs. Perfect.

“Let’s meet him,” Taeyang says abruptly, “Right now, let’s meet your guy.”

Hoya’s eyebrows fly into his hairline, and it’s not acting “Right now?”

Woohyun can hear Sunggyu swearing over the coms.

“Right now,” Taeyang says with a nod.

“He’s a busy man, he might not have time for you right now,” Hoya says smoothly as Woohyun can hear Sunggyu muttering in the background. It’d be distracting, if Woohyun hadn’t had to learn to tune him out very early on.

“Well he’s going to make time for us,” Taeyang said with a frown, “Because we have five million dollars we need to move by the weekend. So he’ll meet us now or not at all.”

Woohyun can see they’re serious about this.

Hoya let’s out a low whistle, buying time, then, “Let me call my source and see if I can arrange it,”

“Be our guest,” Taeyang said, gesturing to the door.

“Okay guys, here’s what we’re going to do. Bring them here.” Sunggyu’s voice says over the com.

“Here, like your apartment?” Hoya’s voice comes over loud, clear and very skeptical. Woohyun wishes he could add his voice to that. “Are you insane.”

“No, I’m thinking on my feet.” Sunggyu says with a groan, “Bring them here and we’ll get something sorted. Just try and give us half an hour.”

“We’ll try, no guarantees.” Hoya says, before ‘hanging up’ the phone and returning as Sunggyu starts barking orders at Sungjong and Dongwoo.

“Alright,” Hoya says, “He’ll see you now.”

“Excellent, lead the way then,” Seungri says, gesturing to the door as the four of them trail out.

“So,” Sungyeol says a few seconds later as Hoya and Woohyun are following the brothers in silence, “Did he _actually_ know that pearls are actually the new currency of choice for crazy rich people?” he asks rhetorically, “Or is he just scary good?”

“I think,” Myungsoo says solemnly, “He might have super powers.”

It takes all of Woohyun’s efforts not to laugh. Judging by Hoya’s face, he feels the same.

 

♢♢♢

 

Seungri and Taeyang insist on bringing their own ‘precious stone’ expert with them, which would panic Woohyun usually but it buys the others some more time, so this time he counts his blessings.

It’s almost ninety minutes  after leaving the club that Hoya is leading them all up the elevator and knocking on the door to Sunggyu’s apartment.

The door swings open and there is Sungyeol. Woohyun barely has time to offer a quick prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in that Sungyeol doesn’t go overboard before they’re being ushered into the living room. Or what once was the living room, as Sungyeol and Hoya get pleasantry’s done and dusted Woohyun surveys his surroundings. All the living room furniture is gone, replaced by what appears to be a work bench and some jewellery cabinets. Most of the televisions are gone from the wall, leaving only three remaining, each playing footage from different security cameras.

Woohyun knew he was right about Sunggyu having one in the lobby.

Woohyun tunes back into the conversation in time to here Sungyeol telling The Expert (who had refused to tell Hoya or Woohyun his name - clever man) he could examine _one_ of his pearls.

Woohyun watches as he hands over a single pearl, Sungjong hovering in the background. Clearly they have some slight of hand plan up their sleeve here - Woohyun hates not knowing exactly what’s going on.

Seungri and Taeyang try and hide the way they’re fidgting nervously as The Expert examines the pearl for a good ten minutes, Hoya leaning against the wall by the door as if keeping guard, and Woohyun hovering between them as if unsure of his place.

Finally, The Expert looks up at Sungyeol, “This is a very valuable pearl you’ve got.” He tells him.

“I know that,” Sungyeol scoffs. It’s a very obvious observation to make, “I have thousands more like that.”

“Thousands?” The Expert asks, looking very interested.

“I don’t care how many he has,” Taeyang scoffs, “How much is it worth.”

“I’d say around $10,000,” The Expert tells them seriously. Even Woohyun’s impressed at how quickly they’d managed to get such a valuable pearl. “It’s one of the most perfectly formed pearls I have seen.”

“Tony, tells me you needs $5 million worth,” Sungyeol drawls, “I think we can work something out. 500 pearls is nothing to me, small fry.”

“I want to verify the authenticity of every single pearl.” Taeyang says, eyeing Sungyeol critically. Woohyun feels his heart sink just slightly, that seems out of character and meticulous for these guys; everything else they’ve done so far has been reckless through and through.

Out of the corner of his eye Woohyun can see Hoya opening his mouth, clearly, about to step in. That is until Sungyeol shows everyone exactly how fast he is on his feet, again.

“You don’t trust my word? You’re calling me a liar?” Sungyeol says, pulling himself up to his full height which makes him tower over Taeyang.

“Nothing personal,” Seungri says smoothly, though looking slightly put out by Sungyeol, “You know how this job is.”

“Oh I know how this job is.” Sungyeol says, before snapping, “Jae”

In the next second Sungjong is there, bottle of vinegar in his hands. Woohyun is lost and judging by the awkward way Hoya is holding himself he’s not the only one.

Thankfully they don’t have to wait too long to figure out what Sungyeol is doing because next second he’s pulling a bowl out from somewhere, filling it with vinegar and dropping the pearl into it.

The Expert snorts, “You want us to wait here for twenty four hours to prove that you have a real pearl?”

Sungyeol shrugs again, picks up another pearl and puts it in some bizarre machine that Woohyun has never seen before. A thin powder, powdered pearls, Woohyun is going to assume comes out and then Sungyeol is dropping that in the vinegar. This time, Woohyun watches in interest as the powder starts to fizzle slightly.

Pearls dissolve in vinegar. Right. Like that Cleopatra myth.

“What is happening here?” Seungri whispers to the expert.

“Pearls dissolved in vinegar.” The Expert says swallowing nervously, “Of course it proves nothing except that was a pearl, probably a cheap pearl, to prove a point but…” He sounds nervous, though Woohyun hopes Sungyeol has something more up his sleeve.

“So you dissolved a cheap pearl,” Taeyang scoffs, “Why are you so insistent on not showing us your wares? This feels like a scam.”

“Myungsoo,” Sunggyu’s urging voice comes through their headset, “Would you hurry up.”

Woohyun hadn’t even been aware Myungsoo was up to anything, “I’m trying, not all of us are Sungyeol.”

Woohyun can see Sungyeol smirking at that, thankfully it seems in character.

As all of this is happening Sungjong has grabbed the pearl, the $10,000 pearl, from The Experts hand and given it to Sungyeol who has repeated the process.

The Expert whimpers slightly.

Sungjong is reaching, very obviously he could have had it by now without anyone knowing, for the pearl in Seungri’s hand when two things happen. Myungsoo exclaims, “I’ve got it”, and the expert snatches the pearl back from Sungjong.

Bingo.

As Myungsoo relays information to Sungyeol, Woohyun tunes it out, The Expert and Sungjong have a stare down.

“That’s not yours.” Sungjong says as menacingly as he can. It’s pretty menacing, maybe because it’s so at odds with his delicate look; he’d been discounted by all of the marks.

“No..well…” The expert stutters, “It’d be a shame to destroy such a perfect pearl.”

“It’s not yours.” Sungjong repeats. Woohyun is proud of the kid even if he’s barely had a hand in his ‘training’, “You don’t get to decide what to do with it.”

“Yes,” Taeyang says sarcastically, “Destroy the one expensive pearl you’ve shown us, but show us no others. Reassuring.”

“You asked why I won’t let you see. I will let you see.” Sungyeol says, “I won’t let you examine for six very simple reasons.” He pauses theatrically, overselling it in Woohyun’s opinion. Hoya’s as well, if the way he rolls his eyes from the back of the room is any indication, “Osaka 2009, Chiba 2008, San Fransisco 2005, Be-” Sungyeol starts to list off.

“Okay,” Taeyang cuts him with an exaggerated huff, “You’ve done your research I’m impressed.”

Sungyeol cocks an eyebrow, “You mean you haven’t done yours?”

Sungyeol had of course managed to plant the information on his alias around the web, but they’d been so insistent on meeting with Hoya’s mysterious source straight away that Woohyun is pretty sure they haven’t had time to look into it.

Seungri opens his mouth, probably to say something about how Sungyeol is too insignificant but Hoya jumps in, probably to protect Sungyeol’s pride and says in a completely deadpan voice, “You’re a new player to the game but you’re behind some of the fenced deals of the last three years, Gangnam 2009, The 2010 Red Bangkok job, and my personal favourite eighteen months ago you helped pull of the Ikebukuro Sunshine City job.”

Seungri whistles, impressed, “Sunshine City? That was you?”

Sungyeol shrugs. Woohyun knows the Gangnam job was Sungyeol’s and Bangkok had been Sungjong. He’s not sure about the Ikebukuro job but judging by the fact Sungyeol probably isn’t dumb enough to try and claim credit for someone else’s work Woohyun is going to guess it was Myungsoo and/or Hoya.

“Yes, I’m amazing, it’s true. So as you can see I don’t need your business.” Sungyeol says. Woohyun tries not to flinch as Sunggyu starts swearing at him. It’s a risky play, sure, but Woohyun’s pretty sure Seungri and Taeyang are proud and interested enough they’re not going to back down. “So are you going to take the deal or not?”

Taeyang is going to be harder to convince than Seungri, so it’s unsurprising he purses his lips, “Show us the merchandise.”

“So you can case the joint?” Sungyeol asks, with a cocked eyebrow. And now he’s pushing it too far.

“Oh just let him see,” Sungjong says, rolling his eyes, “Show them the room and move the merchandise to one of your other warehouses tomorrow.” Woohyun’s thankful, he’d rather not have to listen to another bout of Sunggyu’s swearing, “Besides, I’m sure they’re not dumb enough to cross you of all people.” There’s a threat in that voice.

Sungyeol pauses as if considering for a moment before saying, “They can see but not enter.”

“I hope you guys are finished, Myungsoo and Dongwoo,” Sunggyu says over the coms, “Because they’re heading your way.”

“Give us thirty seconds,” Dongwoo answers cheerily despite sounding slightly out of breathe,

“Right this way then,” Sungjong says, leading the three men from the room, with Hoya and Woohyun behind them and Sungyeol taking the lead.

Hoya grabs at Woohyun waist, taking the opportunity to lean in and whisper, “What did I tell you, Sungyeol is channeling a carton villain,”

“Hmm,” Woohyun acknowledges. He’s pretty sure no one is paying attention to them but he looks away bashfully to be sure, “True, but he’s more Rasputin than Cruella.”

“Fuck both of you.” Sungyeol mutters under his breathe, “I could say the same to you, laying it on a bit thick. Is there some unresolved tension you’re both channeling.”

“Children,” Sunggyu scolds them all, sounding exasperated, “No fighting in the presence of the marks, if you blow your cover I’ll kill you all before they get a chance.”

“We’re finished.” Dongwoo interrupts before Sunggyu can get more detailed in his threats. Hoya steps back from Woohyun with a leer.

Sungjong quickens his steps, and pretty soon they’ve reached the bedroom that Woohyun got so well aquatinted with recently; he can appreciate the irony.

When Sungjong swings the door open though Woohyun has to appreciate the speedy make-over that Dongwoo and Myungsoo have given the room. All the bedroom furniture is gone, replaced by elaborate display cases full of what looks like thousands of pearls; Woohyun _knows_ they’re not all pearls but he has no idea what they’ve managed to get their hands on to fake it.

“What is all this?” Woohyun says.

“Mostly costume jewellery.” Myungsoo answers over the coms, “Some cheaper pearls, also Sungjong inexplicably had a little vault full of fake ceramic pearls.”

“Have you never seen pearls before.” Sungyeol answers for the marks benefit sarcastically, pushing his way into the room, “Now, you can see I have the goods, do you want in or out?”

“Let us prove the validity of one pearl at random from the room.” Taeyang says crossing his arms over his chest and trying to look up and Sungyeol menacingly, “As a show of good faith.”

“Of course,” Sungyeol says, making to step into the room, “I’ll even let you see two, if you really want.”

“Not one you chose, just to be sure, I hope you understand.” Taeyang interrupts smoothly.

“Well I told you I’m not letting you step foot in there,” Sungyeol turns around, arms over his chest “I hope _you_ understand.”

“This lack of trust in us,” Taeyang says stepping closer to Sungyeol, “Is not the start of a trustworthy relationship.”

Sungyeol looks down his nose, “I don’t need trust in my business dealings, just caution.”

“Alright then,” Seungri pushes Taeyang back,  “how about we send our associate Minjun instead,”

Sungyeol pretends to eye him, “I’m not sure how that’s any safer, if he’s willing an associate of _you_.” Sungyeol says, “But I suppose as a show of good faith he’s the best of a rotten lot.”

“Well go on then,” Seungri says, pushing Woohyun towards the room, “Just pick a pearl at random, but one that’s not obviously on display.”

As Woohyun passes Sungjong a pearl is pressed into his hand, and then he’s stepping into the room, surveying it at large, “Uh,” he says hesitantly, walking towards one of the cabinets.

“I wouldn’t recommend that cabinet,” Sungyeol calls out teasingly, “Those are the cheap pearls.”

Woohyun steps towards another cabinet, thinking maybe that one doesn’t actually have any in it, but the next cabinet Sungyeol calls out again, “Those ones aren’t good either.”

He’s either being an asshole to Woohyun knowing he can’t fight back, or just establishing his character more which is still stupid considering he’s only got to play the stupid thing for another half hour tops.

Woohyun ignores him, pulling open the cupboard anyway, “I’m not an expert on pearls but I do know that round ones are the most valuable, and pink ones even more valuable” Woohyun says as he pretends to pluck the pearl in his hand from the shelf and hold it out to show the others, “So I think you’ll find that these _aren’t_ cheap ones.”

“Huh, your dog does have a spine.” Sungyeol says sounding vaguely impressed. Woohyun is going to get him back for this one later

“So he does.” Taeyang says sounding thoughtful, or as close to thoughtful as the guy can get.

Woohyun ignores them, handing the pearl to The Expert. He shifts on his feet subtly, as if he’s trying not to do it and can’t help himself, as The Expert spends a good ten minutes just salivating over the damn thing. Finally, he says, “Well yes, yes I’d see this is very real.”

“And very valuable.” Sungyeol tells him, as if the expert doesn’t know that, “It seems your dog does perhaps have a use.”

Woohyun glares at Sungyeol, figuring it wouldn’t be too out of character. He’ll need to recruit Sungjong to help him with his revenge later.

“It seems he does,” Seungri says with appraising eyes.

Sungyeol snorts, before saying, “So do we have a deal? If we do then let’s make it, if we don’t I’ve had enough of your presence, get out of my place of work.”

“Hold your horses drama queen,” Taeyang scoffs, “we have a deal.”

The group of them return to the living room as the details of the ‘deal’ are finalised exactly the way Sunggyu requires them. It takes Hoya and Sungyeol close to an hour for them, to set it up in a way that makes the marks think most of the details were their own ideas; Woohyun could have had it done in twenty minutes.

Finally though, they’re done, and they’re leaving.

“Two days from now, at the train station.” Taeyang says to Sungyeol at the door. “Oh and Minjun,”

Woohyun snaps to attention not sure what’s going on here, it’s not something they’d planned for that was for sure, “Yes?”

“Since you’re such an expert on pearls now,” he says to Woohyun sarcastically, “You can stay here and keep an eye on Tony and this punk, make sure they’re not packing the suitcase with cheap duds.”

Woohyun doesn’t bother pointing out they could switch the pearls out in the next two days, or that part of the agreement was The Expert would check the authenticity of the pearls before the deal took place. He doesn’t even feel disgusted at the ‘subtle’ wink that Taeyang is sending Hoya, the very clear implication he’s making. He doesn’t care because they’ve given him the perfect out for sticking around, now he doesn’t have to manipulate the situation and there’s no chance of raising suspicions.

“If you insist boss,” He says, making himself sound wary and not too eager.

“Don’t worry Minjun,” Hoya walks up to him dropping an arm over his shoulder with a leer, “We’ll have heaps of fun here.”

Hoya really is creepy when he puts his mind to it. Woohyun’s not sure whether to be impressed or wary.

They stay like that as Taeyang, Seungri and The Expert walk off. “Aww, you guys are cute.” Sungyeol coos at them once the marks are out of earshot.

“I will cut off your toes one by one.” Hoya threatens. It’s a nice threat, Woohyun was just going to sign him up on a sugar daddy sight.

Sungyeol doesn’t seem at all phased though and just laughs.

“Did you really just dispose of thousands of dollars worth of pearls with vinegar?” Hoya asks what Woohyun has been wondering for the last hour, “Did you really?”

“Well, yes.” Sungyeol shrugs as if it’s no big deal. Sometimes Woohyun forgets that Sungyeol doesn’t care about the _things_ so much as the act of stealing them. Other times it’s glaringly obvious.

“I cannot believe that was your play.” Woohyun says rolling his eyes, “Anyone with half a brain would have realised no sane fence is going to throw away his merchandise.”

“Good thing I was going for slightly off kilter mad genius,” Sungyeol says, puffing his chest out as they walk into the lift.

“And as we’ve told you, you missed the mark by a long shot and ended up at very crazed Disney villain,” Hoya tells him in a bored tone of voice.

“Yeah, it was hit and miss for a second there because really no one is stupid enough to not check the goods at a first time deal.” Woohyun says that now, but he’s seen some really, really stupid people in his time. Most of them are on the right side of the law though.

“They were panicked, they need to move the money fast since Myungsoo’s ID pinged.” Sungyeol shrugged, as they step out of the elevator “We were pretty sure they were panicked enough they were never going to check.”

Pretty sure usually isn’t good enough, but then this job is nothing like their usual ones.

“Seriously though, Sungjong couldn’t have just stolen some pearls for them to evaluate?” Hoyas ask as the three of them step foot into the apartment to find the other four waiting for them.

“Sungjong did steal some pearls, you know the ones as you pointed out that we actually destroyed,” Sungyeol snaps back  “but he didn’t exactly have enough time to steal $5 million worth, thanks to someone.”

“I could have done it.” Sungjong speaks up

“Not without being noticed,” Sunggyu dismisses him, “He would have had time, if you two had _stalled_ them a couple of days like the original plan.”

“Like you said, they panicked and were spooked, tell them they had to wait a few days and they might have gone with some other option.” Woohyun says.

“Almost certainly would have,” Hoya backs him up, potentially for the first time ever.

“Well it doesn’t matter,” Sunggyu cuts them off with another long suffering sigh. Leading their band of misfits and keeping secrets from them, must be so hard for him. “It’s done now, and we need those pearls before Thursday.”

“So Sungjong is going to spend the next two days stealing some from people then?” Woohyun has to ask. He assumes that’s where this plan is going.

“Something like that, unless anyone else has any stashes of pearls they want to let us know about?” Sunggyu asks the room. Everyone shakes their head. “Then yes, Sungjong’s going to have to find us a couple of million dollars worth of pearls.”

“Easy,” Sungjong says dismissively, like he could do it in half that time. He probably could. “Make sure not to draw attention to yourself,” Sunggyu says, as if Sungjong of all people needs warned of that.

“And not to rob any little old ladies of their grandmothers heirlooms or something.” Woohyun has to add.

Sungjong fixes Woohyun with that deadpan look that never fails to make him feel slightly stupid, only slightly though, “I doubt those are the quality of pearls we’re looking for.”

“Rich assholes only.” Woohyun insists.

“I told you,” Sungyeol crows in delight.

“Rich assholes are less likely to notice their pearls missing and spook our clients.” Woohyun says haughtily, “I’m only thinking rationally.”

“It’s okay Woohyun,” Dongwoo says cheerily, “I knew you were secretly really nice under all your, Woohyunness.” The way Dongwoo says it is tinged with genuineness, but he’s also under the distinct impression that Dongwoo is laughing at him

“Fuck you all.” Woohyun tells them ever so eloquently. They just laugh at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look okay all I can say in my defence is it's not an episode of Leverage if the con isn't nonsensical and 200x harder/more complicated than it actually needs to me. I just somehow managed to make it even MORE nonsensical in this thing than I ever thought possible.


	4. ACT III ½

“You know we’re going to have to clear out of here now, right?” Sungyeol asks with a sigh as they sit round the living room with boxes of pizza later that night. Well all of them except Sungjong who has apparently left the country so there’s no chance his pearl thefts will be noticed; he says that it’s about time _someone_ is cautious on this job. Woohyun couldn’t agree more.

“Shame I liked this building.” Dongwoo says through a mouthful of pizza

“It’s time,” Sunggyu says cryptically, in a way that makes Woohyun think perhaps he’d been planning to move on even before this all went down.

“Are we going to stay in the city or move somewhere else?” Myungsoo, of course it’s Myungsoo, asks hesitantly.

“I’m thinking another country is in order.” Sunggyu says thoughtfully; he probably already has the country decided and new jobs lined up.

“Can we go back to Seoul?” Dongwoo asks hopefully.

“No,” Hoya says sharply, “Not Seoul.” Okay then.

“I wanna try somewhere in Europe,” Is Sungyeol’s suggestion, piece of pizza in one hand and his phone clutched in the other “A Scandinavian country, maybe Norway?”

“Sungjong’s got like three warrants for arrest on him in Norway,” Hoya shoots that down. What a negative person.

“I’ve never been to Australia,” Myungsoo pipes up, picking the olives off his pizza and dropping them onto the slice in Hoya’s hand.

“That’s because there’s nothing worth _stealing_ in Australia.” Woohyun says dryly.

“Yes, but we’re not just thieves anymore and I’m sure there are corrupt corporations ripping off innocent Australians,” Sungyeol tells him with an innocent smile.

“We’ll go somewhere, and it’ll be decided after this job.” Sunggyu cuts them all off. Bullshit, it’s already been decided, “But right now let’s focus.”

“I want to know where Woohyun would want to go though,” Myungsoo says with a little whine and pout. Brat. “Please?”

“Fine,” Sunggyu sighs, “Woohyun where would you go.”

Woohyun shrugs, “Abu Dhabi.” He says picking a country at random. They roll their eyes at him but don’t question it.

“Sunggyu?” Sungyeol asks.

“Nice try, but no.” Sunggyu rolls his eyes. Apparently this is a bonding thing now.

“Japan,” Myungsoo and Hoya both say as Dongwoo opens his mouth but before he gets a chance to say anything. Hoya smacks Myungsoo on the head gently and returns the olives to Myungsoo’s piece of pizza. Myungsoo wrinkles his nose.

Dongwoo shrugs before asking curiously, “Where do you think Sungjong would go?”

“Pakistan,”

“Singapore.”

“Spain.” Are all shouted out.

“Pakistan?” Hoya turns to Sungyeol with a raised eyebrow, “What a stupid answer,”

“Like any of us would actually have any idea where Sungjong would want to go,” Sungyeol rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should give a stupid ass answer,” Hoya rolls his eyes in return in a mocking way. Stupid ass might just be his most sophisticated insult yet.

Sunggyu lets the two of them bicker for almost five minuets, little smirk at their pettiness on his face, before getting them back on topic.  After all they have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it.

Woohyun’s starting to sense a theme.

 

♢♢♢

 

Once Hoya and Myungsoo obtain the promised train, less than 16 hours before the final state is to be put into motion, it’s a sleepless night for everyone getting it ready.

“Why didn’t we just get a train carriage?” Sungyeol asks with a sigh, leaning back on the chair Woohyun is trying to reupholster.

“You try switching out _one_ carriage of a train inconspicuously,” Myungsoo scoffs from the set of seats behind them.

“Besides, we’re only actually altering two of the carriages.” Woohyun offers. He’s not entirely sure how Hoya and Myungsoo’s contact managed to not only get them a train but organise for it to be put on the necessary route on such short notice but he’s not going to question it.

Sungyeol just sighs, pulling his phone out of his pocket to mess around with, “If you’re not going to be any help can you go to the other carriage and do it,” Woohyun sighs, “Or at least get off this seat.”

“No, Sunggyu’s in the other carriage.” Sungyeol shakes his head before screeching, “Ouch,” and grasping at his head.

“Sorry, clumsy fingers.” Sungjong calls down from where is perched in the luggage rack above them having just dropped a screwdriver on Sungyeol’s head.

Woohyun hides a laugh in his hand; they all know Sungjong hasn’t had clumsy fingers a day in his life.

Sungyeol was interrupted in whatever his response was going to be by the arrival of Hoya, can of paint clutched in his hand. “Here,” He said, dropping the thing on the floor next to Woohyun.

“Are you done with your construction project?” Myungsoo asks in surprise, “I thought it would have taken you and Dongwoo _ages_.” Of course no one expects Sunggyu to actually be doing anything.

“No, of course we’re not finished.” Hoya scoffs, “But we thought someone might be doing nothing,” He looks pointedly at Sungyeol, “and need a job.”

“You’re not my boss.” Sungyeol doesn’t look up from his phone.

Hoya flicks paint at him in retaliation, “No but Sunggyu is.”

It’s not a particularly good threat, Sunggyu can’t actually do much to Sungyeol, even giving him the terrible jobs of a plan is hard since he’s the only one half way competent in computers, but still Sungyeol sighs, “If I must.”

“I’ll do the painting,” Woohyun says, standing up from his squatting position, ignoring the protesting of his legs, “Sungyeol can reupholster since he’s the one that insists on getting in my way.”

“Suit yourself,” Hoya shrugs, “as long as it gets done.”

Sungyeol mutters something sarcastically under his breath that Woohyun doesn’t quite catch, but Hoya clearly does because he tears round and shoots _that_ judgemental stare at Sungyeol, “Oh yeah? Do you wanna help Dongwoo with the wall? Because I’ll gladly do the seat cushions.”

“Fine, fine, whatever.” Sungyeol mutters. He does get to his feet and grab the utility knife from Woohyun’s hand so clearly Hoya has super powers.

Sungyeol stays at work, though at a slow pace, for almost two hours. “I’m not used to using my hands,” He tells Woohyun.

“So what do you use to type?” Hoya asks appearing out of nowhere, well from the other carriage, again and dropping down onto the seat next to Woohyun, “Your feet.”

Sungyeol fixes Hoya with a deadpan look, “You know I think I preferred you when you were all silent and mysterious and not making weird dad jokes every three seconds.”

“I know I did,” Woohyun volunteered, with a sigh. There’s currently paint all over his hands and in his hair.

“You know you’ve got paint in your eyelashes,” Hoya tells him, leaning closer.

“Cute” Sungyeol says looking incredibly bored. Hoya throws a paintbrush at him.

“Dongwoo wants to check that we’ve got enough room, can I borrow Woohyun for a second,” Hoya says, getting back to his feet.

“Likely story,” Sungyeol says cheekily, “You just want to have your wicked way with him, you’ve had a taste and now-” This time it’s a spanner that falls on Sungyeol’s head.

“My mistake. Again,” Sungjong calls down. Hoya shoots him a grateful smile.

“Ahh Lee Sungjong,” Sungyeol screeches, rocketing to his feel, “I’ll get you back for this,”

“It was an accident,” Sungjong says lying straight to his face, “Don’t try and say you’ve never had those before because we know that’s a bold-faced lie,”

“Oh, you’d know all about bold-faced lies.” Sungyeol glares, throwing the spanner back at Sungjong.

“Come on, Dongwoo’s waiting,” Hoya touches Woohyun’s shoulder, but then walks away refusing to look Woohyun in the eye, though in a subtle way. Woohyun only knows because it’s his job.

Woohyun follows, and he thinks. He’s got he’s suspicions about whats going on here. Interesting. Woohyun thinks, but doesn’t ponder it much beyond that. They have way bigger things to worry about right now, like whether the train is going to be prepared on time. He’ll talk to Hoya about it later.

(They do get it finished. With 2 minutes to spare

Hoya quips that next time they can do better, leave it till thirty seconds.

Three different people throw things at him.)

 

♢♢♢

 

Ten o’clock on Thursday morning finds Woohyun boarding the train with Seungri and Taeyang, backpack with five million dollars in cash slung over Woohyun’s shoulder. So close, they’re so close, and Woohyun is fairly confident this is all going to work out as planned. Usually this is the place a spanner would be thrown into the works but Woohyun’s of the firm belief there aren’t any spanners _left_ for throwing when it comes to this particular job.

They take a seat in a mostly empty but not conspicuously empty cart, occupying a set of four seats facing each other. Dongwook gets on after them, taking a seat in the set of seats behind them so they don’t appear to be together. They don’t say anything, and a stop later Hoya gets on and takes a seat on the opposite side of the aisle to them.

It’s another three stops before The Expert is boarding, looking even more nervous than usual. Dongwook shoots The Expert an annoyed look at that, probably writing it down to him being cowardly. Woohyun tries not to smirk since he knows better, knows Dongwoo paid their expert a warning visit last night.

“Pull yourself together,” Taeyang leans across the aisle to fix the expert with a glare, Seungri looking around the compartment to make sure no one is paying them any notice. It’s after rush hour and the train carriage is mostly empty, the few people that do occupy it are glued to their phones or tablets; exactly how they’d planned it.

Sunggyu is sitting in the far corner observing what’s happening so he can alter the plan at the last minute if necessary; of course as the only member of the team who hasn’t been seen by any of their marks he’s able to do it without suspicion. If asked Woohyun bets he would say that was his plan all along.

“Yes, right, okay.” The Expert stutters, looking up at Hoya’s intimidating glare for a second before looking away quickly.

Taeyang rolls his eyes with a sneer but doesn’t say anything else until Sungjong walks into the carriage five minutes later.  He looks around before sitting down opposite Woohyun.

Honestly these guys are awful at remaining inconspicuous, considering how empty the train is, everyone choosing to sit in the same small area is not subtle. Woohyun would have had his associates get on the train at various stops to fill the carriage inconspicuously, if he was them, but clearly they’re planning to flee soon and are just trying not to get caught.

They’re also under the impression there are no camera on the train.

“Let me guess,” Taeyang smirks, “Your boss sends his regards?”

Sungjong inclines his head “He does.”

“He doesn’t trust us.” Seungri says, having the gall to pull his face into a faux hurt expression; Woohyun would almost say he was pouting.

“He doesn’t.” Sungjong says, small smile curling up the corners of his lips, “His trust is not easily earned. And you have a reputation.”

“Does he believe all the heresy he hears?” Taeyang asks, leaning back against his seat with a raised eyebrow.

“When a certain number of people all say the same thing about the same person it has to come from somewhere,” Sungjong says smoothly, “So no, my boss rarely ventures into such an unsecured public place,” Sungjong looks around the carriage as if in disgust, “But you’ve got your goods so it really doesn’t concern you.”

Sungjong is just playing Sungjong but Woohyun has to admit he’s good, he hopes Sunggyu is paying attention because the kid could be useful in the future.

 

“We’ll be the judge of that,” Taeyang says with a smirk, “So let’s see them.”

Sungjong rolls his eyes again, flashing Taeyang and Seungri the contents of the bag for a second, just long enough for them to see there are pearls in it and nod in approval, before handing it across the isle to The Expert

He takes a good fifteen minutes to examine the contents of the bag, sticking his hands inside and digging around inside  but never actually pulling a pearl out of the bag. The Expert sits pressed to the window, Hoya on the outside seat opposite him surveying anyone walking past.

Eventually The Expert lets out a long suffering sigh, and rubs at his glasses nervously before nodding, “They’re all good.”

Taeyang looks almost disappointed at that. Transparency at it’s finest.

“Are you satisfied?” Sungjong drawls, “Or do you think you could do a better job valuing than your own expert?”

Taeyang leans across the aisle and snatches the bag from The Expert. He peers inside for a second before shrugging, “Looks good to me.” Woohyun struggles not to roll his eyes.

“Well now we have your experts approval, are you going to fulfil your side of the bargain,” Sungjong tilts his head, “Or are you going to live up to your reputation and let this get ugly.”

Taeyang looks like he’s seriously considering the idea, which should surprise no one, but Hoya just raises an eyebrow gestured to his holstered gun, and Taeyang sighed.

“No, we’ll honour our agreement.” He said, pointing to Woohyun, “Minjun, give him the bag.”

Woohyun deposits the bag in Sungjong’a lap. Sungjong rummages through the bag as if counting it (of course he already knows the amount is right because he’d heard Woohyun counting it over the coms earlier).  Finally he looks up with a smile, “Alright then, I’m glad we could conduct this transaction in a civilised manner.”

Taeyang snorts at that. Woohyun continues to say nothing.

“It’s been a _pleasure_ doing business with you,” Sungjong says with a sardonic grin, getting up and slinging the bag of cash over his shoulder as the train pulls into the next station, “but please never contact us again.”

He makes to walk away before turning to The Expert and throwing something at him, “A token, for someone who appreciates fine pearls,” he winks before getting off the train.

The Expert uncurls his hand to see a perfectly round pink pearl sitting in the centre of it. Woohyun smirks as he notices the pleased smile on the others mans face. “Playing favourites I see,” Taeyang mutters under his breathe, “I have half a mind to make you give that to me.”

“Shouldn’t you be letting your experts keep their payments,” Hoya says sarcastically, “You know whilst you still have experts willing to work with you.”

“Oh they don’t have to be willing,” Taeyang smirks again, flashing the blade of a knife at them. Honestly Woohyun’s not even going to guess where he’d been keeping it.

The Expert swallows nervously, making to hand the pearl over. “Don’t be stupid.” Seungri whacks him on the hand, “Keep it as your payment. If we don’t have to pay you all the better.”

The Expert withdraws his hand and looks more than pleased to be getting off the train himself at the next stop. And then there were five.

As soon as The Expert leaves, Dongwook gets up and leaves the carriage, returning a couple of minutes later.

“Honestly this train has the smallest bathrooms I have ever seen.” He complains, slipping into the seat opposite Woohyun and making sure their knees brush. Hoya makes a displeased noise and the two of them have a little staring-pissing contest. Woohyun has to force himself to look clueless and not roll his eyes.

“Just because you’re used to first class carriages.” Taeyang rolls his eyes. “Suck it up for three seconds.”

Dongwook kicks Taeyang but doesn’t say anything else and thankfully it doesn’t escalate.

“Could you two give us a minute?” Seungri asks them politely, “We’d like to discuss something,”

“Of course.” Woohyun nods eagerly. Hoya shrugs apathetically  before slapping Woohyun’s ass as he passes (It’s not actually his ass, more his lower back, but it’s the thought that counts). Woohyun tries to look embarrassed and pleased as he walks away, but mutters “I’m going to kill you later,” as Hoya follows him to a spare seat at the end of the carriage, ignoring the way Sungyeol is catcalling in the background.

“How long do you give it?” Woohyun mutters to Hoya, once they’re settled.

“I’d give it a maximum of another five minutes.” Hoya mutters back, getting into Woohyun’s space

“And you two are cute, you should give a repeat performance just to sell it.” Sungyeol says over the coms

Woohyun’s pretty sure the tips of Hoya’s ears are going red, underneath his mop of hair, but because he’s a good guy he doesn’t mention it.

“I will throw you off this moving train,” Hoya whispers instead, reaching up nonchalantly to knock on the wall of the carriage behind him.

“Children,” Sunggyu says tiredly as the train pulls into the next station, “Can we continue this in half an hour when we’ve wrapped this job up?”

“Or we could continue it never,” Hoya says warningly as the train stops. Everything seems normal until the train starts again

Except then suddenly the carriage is swarming with cops, Woohyun counts a dozen of them, six coming from the carriages on either side of them.

“Shit,” Hoya swears under his breathe watching as their three marks are surrounded by the police. Luckily Woohyun and Hoya have been largely ignored.

“Excuse me officers,” Seungri says smoothly, standing up. Woohyun thanks the heavens Sungyeol had the foresight to install a mic that broadcast to their coms  “What seems to be the problem,”

“We’ve received an anonymous tip-off by a member of the public,” One of the police officers said, “Who believe that you’ve been making a shady transaction,”

“I can assure you officer that no such thing has happened,” Seungri says, shooting Woohyun a look out the corner of his eye. Woohyun shrinks away, hopes they’re not going to turn him in.

“The woman next to Sunggyu,” Hoya mutters under his breathe, referring to a young mother with a small child in her lap, staring wide eyed at the scene, “She was on her phone looking secretive about fifteen minutes ago,”

“Efficient,” Woohyun whispers back.

“Well then what have you got there?” The police officer asks, gesturing to the very conspicuously placed bag of pearls.

“Oh this? We’re in the jewellery business you see and we’ve just made a purchase of pearls,” Seungri says. Woohyun can see Dongwook’s hand itching to grab his sheathed knife but knows he won’t risk it with all the cops around.

“You’re carrying a backpack full of pearls on the public train network?” Another cop laughs skeptically, “As if.”

“Lee,” The first cop warns with a frown before turning back to the marks, “Why?”

“To avoid being conspicuous,” Taeyang speaks up with a drawl.

“Well then you won’t mind if we take a look then,” The first cop says, gesturing for another police officer to grab the bag. He does so looking inside and letting out a low whistle, “Well mate, how fucking stupid do you think we are?” he asks.

“Excuse me?” Seungri says, looking affronted.

The third cop reaches into the bag and pulls out a handful of small white objects. They’re very much not pearls though. All three marks look at them in various states of shock.

“You expected us to believe that Codeine pills were pearls?” The first officer, clearly the man in charge, asks skeptically, “That was the best you could come up with?”

“What?” Taeyang asks with a grunt, “You’re shitting us, they were clearly pearls,” He goes to grab the bag from the officer but only succeeds in knocking it to the ground, spilling a stash of Codeine pills all over the floor.

“What the _fuck?”_ Dongwook swears in shock.

“Alright, we’ve got them on possession and intent to sell at the very least,” The boss man says sounding like he can’t believe his luck, “arrest them all.”

Of course someone is going to think of Hoya and Woohyun and sure enough Taeyang looks towards the two of them as he’s being  hauled to his feet by one of the cops.

As he looks towards them Hoya drops an arm over Woohyun’s shoulder and the two of them wiggle their fingers in a wave. Woohyun adds a wink for good luck.

Taeyang splutters at them looking incredibly deranged before saying to the police officers, “They set us up! Those guys over there.”

Quickly, whilst the police have their backs to them and Taeyang is preoccupied with the police the two of them sneak out of their seats, Dongwoo and Myungsoo quickly taking their places “Look.”

“Those guys?” The police officer said, turning around to look at Dongwoo’s big grin and Myungsoo’s genetically innocent looking face.

“No! A second ago it was those good for nothing double crossers. We drugged him and he assaulted him but clearly they were in it together…”

“Are you admitting to drugging someone?” The police officer says as if he can’t believe all the evidence that dropped into their lap,

“No! I..” Taeyang sputters as Seungri elbows him in the stomach hissing, “shut up.”

“That was kind of fun,” Woohyun says with a laugh as he presses his body against Hoya’s so they can both fit in the tight space “It was definitely satisfying.”

Hoya smiles at him, a genuine smile that Woohyun has to admit he missed after all the smirks that have been thrown his way this week, “Yeah, it was.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've reached the end of what I've finished chapter wise (The last chapter is starting, probably a little under half way finished so we'll see how long it takes me) but yes it's the end of the job the rest is just emotional wrap-up.
> 
> Like I said last chapter I'm aware how silly this plot was but honestly it was fun, trying to come up with something silly though if I do finish this not everything will be this silly plot wise, but I need something to outweight the well heavier stuff.


	5. ACT IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly, truly intended to only have five chapters for this fic (actually I was initially only going to have four - one for each Act) but this last one has gotten so out of hand it's at 7k words already and the biggest scene + last scene haven't been written yet so here I am splitting them up again.
> 
> Once again shout out to the gorgeous S whose input has been asked for at basically every potentially forking path of which this scene has had many.

ACT FOUR

 

♡♡♡

 

Woohyun and Hoya escape out the bathroom window of the train when it pulls into the next station and stops, allowing more cops to get on. A cursory sweep of the train had been done for two guys that matched their description and when no one had been found the train had been allowed to pull into the next station.

When a $5 million drug deal had apparently gone down they couldn’t rely on police laziness and had assumed the train would at least be searched for them. Hence the hiding space that Dongwoo and Hoya had painstakingly built between the bathroom and carriage wall last night. There’s no way that Woohyun is going to hide in there for the rest of the day though, he’d flat out refused.

Instead they trek to the specified diner that is not too close to the station but close enough.Footage of them is of course going to be found but all the camera on the train except the ones that filmed the deal going down will be found to have mysteriously failed to record this morning.

As the two of them sit in silence, Sungyeol keeps up a delighted running commentary for them describing in great detail everything from the way the woman who had called the police had described Hoya as ‘the strong face with the eyebrows’ and Woohyun as ‘Pointy nosed and floofy haired’ to the very graphic curses that Dongwook had hurled at the cops.

“Apparently,” Sungyeol tells them cheerfully, “He’s going to find your mothers, cut them into cube sized pieces and serve them to you as your dinner.”

“Well that’s charming.” Woohyun says dryly.

“Good luck collecting her ashes out of the sea,” Hoya says nonchalantly. Woohyun stare at Hoya in shock, not sure if he’s making a tasteless joke or if he’s finally revealed something semi-personal about himself. This job has been odd in so many ways.

“I don’t know, he seems pretty determined.” Myungsoo comments thoughtfully, “I’m sure he’d at least try it.”

“He’s welcome to,” Hoya scoffs. Myungsoo just hums in acknowledgement as if nothing about this is out of the ordinary. Another piece of information to file away in his sparse Hoya mental box.

“I don’t think he’ll be doing anything for a long time,” Sunggyu cuts in, “Besides being locked up.”

“Yeah, anyone want to guess how many of the guns he has on his person right now he has registered or licences for?” Sungyeol asks taking more pleasure from this than is probably healthy. Woohyun feels the same.

“None,” Sungjong interjects dryly, “The answer is none of them.” Sungyeol was the only one that had stayed off the train today, instead he had been monitoring them from headquarters. Sungjong had joined him after getting off the train though, and Woohyun can imagine the two of them sitting in front of the monitors bickering. He doesn’t even need to imagine it since he’s seen it happen enough times that he’s certain it’s what they’re doing right now.

Sungyeol mutters under his breathe about Sungjong stealing his dramatic moment but they all chose to ignore him as Sunggyu says, “Okay, the police are taking them off, and then I imagine the train will start back up again.”

It probably would have made more sense for the police to evacuate all the passengers off the train but since it’s the middle of the day they seem to have decided that it’s just not worth it. Or they’re too lazy. Or the police have some stupid procedure that’s been in place for decades that no bureaucrat  has been bothered to change.

“Protocol says that the train will finish the route and then be taken off for a proper inspection. Everyone will be inspected coming off the train and no one new will be let on.” Sungyeol tells them, basically answering the question Woohyun hadn’t asked.

“That seems convenient for us,” Woohyun says suspiciously.

“You’d think so but no I didn’t hack their protocols this time,” Sungyeol says. It was something he’d done for them back in 2010 on one of their first jobs when everyone was still figuring out how to come together (not that Woohyun is convinced they have it totally down yet), “They’re just really stupid and outdated all on their own.”

“You can always count on the cops to help you get away with a crime,” Sunggyu chuckles under his breath before reverting to mastermind mode, “Right, Myungsoo you’re off at the next station and rendezvousing with Hoya and Woohyun. Dongwoo wait two stops before getting off and then you’re back to the base to help Sungyeol and Sungjong pack everything up and out.”

He finishes there not expanding on plans for himself. “And you?” Dongwoo asked what they’re all thinking because they all know Sunggyu’s going to take questioning the best if it comes from Dongwoo.

“I’ll go see the client and let her know the job is done.” Sunggyu says. Sunggyu has never gone to see a client as soon as the job is finished, he generally lets the dust settle for a few days before making them come to him.

They all know that.

“I hope she’s worth it,” Hoya says after the silence has begun to drag, shooting Woohyun a look he really cannot decipher much to his frustration.

“If we’re getting out of here a meeting with the client as soon as possible is necessary,” Sunggyu says. He sounds stiff but he’s giving them _something_ which is out of character for him. It sounds like bullshit to Woohyun but it’s something.

Hoya doesn’t seem to agree, “If you’re going to lie to us you’re better off just not saying anything,” He says dismissively.

Thankfully they’re cut off from _another_ argument (Which would not go well for remaining under the radar considering the fact they’re both in public places but not together) by Sungyeol, “Alright where are we relocating to?”

“Until we tie up our lose ends and get out of the country, your place.” Sunggyu says. Woohyun can also hear Myungsoo bidding Dongwoo goodbye as he presumably gets off the train meaning he’ll get to them in about fifteen minutes. Hoya clearly is thinking the same thing because he flags a waitress down to place an order for Myungsoo.

“Your place is the only other place where you’ve got all your technology stuff set up,” Sunggyu explains to Sungyeol patiently. He’s not wrong, Myungsoo likes to gleefully tell a story of Sungyeol almost crying at the state of the ‘set-up’ at his apartment (Woohyun’s favourite part of that story is always the way Myungsoo very solemnly explains his technology is so outdated because new devices frustrated Hoya and he doesn’t want his computer and television being shot at).

“Please, it’ll take like three minutes for me to set it up anywhere.” Sungyeol huffs, “How about we intrude on Woohyun instead.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” Hoya drawls, before deflecting by asking, “Why don’t you want us at your place Sungyeol? Afraid Sungjong will find your hentai collection?”

Sungyeol’s usually sharp tongue fails him and he splutters out a bunch of nonsense whilst Sungjong says, “Please Hyung I found that a year ago.”

Woohyun tries not to laugh at their antics. He’s pretty sure everyone in this diner already think they’re deranged.

 

♡♡♡

 

Sure enough as Woohyun had predicted Myungsoo shows up just over fifteen minutes later, just as the food that Hoya had ordered comes to the table. There’s no food for Woohyun, good because he’s not particularly feeling hungry, but Hoya did get a bottle of iced tea for him and for that he’s grateful.

“So, that was fun.” Myungsoo said cheerfully as he sits down next to Hoya, face lighting up as he notices the food, “Thanks for the food Hoya-hyung.”

“They’re out eating food and having a chat whilst we’re doing the heavy lifting relocating headquarters again,” Sungyeol grouses over the coms, “Does someone want to explain to me how that’s fair.”

“Do you really want an explanation,” Sungjong asked sounding incredibly bored, a tone he adopts often but never more so than when he’s around Sungyeol, “Or do you just want to listen to the sound of yourself complaining?”

“Second one,” Myungsoo answers , “Definitely the second one.”

“It’s because if evil henchmen are sent back to the hangouts like in the terrible action movies the marks think they’re a part of,” Dongwoo explains. To some it might seem like he’s completely missed the rhetorical nature of Sungyeol’s question but Woohyun can hear the teasing condescension in his voice, “It’ll be easier to explain away you guys than Woohyun and Hoya. And I don’t know about you but I’d rather not have our grifter and hacker chopped to pieces and fed to their mothers.” He laughs then, “Oops. I think a little girl now believes I’m a serial killer.”

Woohyun can imagine, Dongwoo is not good at being quiet on the coms and often times prefers to be pretending to take a call so he doesn’t have to regulate his volume so much.

“Woohyun will help you set everything up once we move to your place though,” Hoya supplies helpfully, smirking at Woohyun and not even bothering to hide his amusement, “I’m sure he’d be more than happy to assist,”

“You think I’m going to let Woohyun touch any of my tech?” Sungyeol asks sounding outraged. Woohyun should be the one being outraged at this distrust.

“Well unless you want to carry nine television screens by yourself…” Hoya suggests cheekily, “Or I could help I suppose.”

“Don’t even think of touching anything that uses any sort of power to switch on, just don’t do it.” Sungyeol says back straight away. Hoya can’t be that technophobic, can he?

“Well then I can’t help you sorry, but I’m sure making Woohyun carry televisions up stairs would be a nice sort of amusement.” Hoya leans back in his chair. He’s so busy teasing Woohyun that doesn’t even bother scolding Myungsoo when the younger steals a handful of chips from his plate.

“Why would I willingly subject myself to your amusement?” Woohyun asks dryly.

“Think of it as a team building exercise.” Hoya suggests still smirking as he stabs a forkful of lettuce of all things off of Myungsoo’s plate. Myungsoo retaliates by stealing another chip despite the fact he still has a few in his hand from his first theft. Children, honestly. Hoya shrugs, “Boost team morale.”

“Did taking the bad guy down not do that?” Sungjong asks dryly.

“What about my morale.” Woohyun mutters under his breathe. Of course everyone hears him because the damn coms are incredibly sensitive. Woohyun appreciates Sungyeol’s genius when it comes to them 90% of the time.

“Take one for the team,” Myungsoo suggests through the chips he’s stuffed in his mouth all at once.

“Kim Myungsoo we can hear you eating right now,” Sungyeol says in disgust, as if they haven’t had to listen to him slurping at his coffee as he sits behind the keyboard bossing them around form afar during pretty much every job.

“At least you don’t have to watch him eating” Hoya twists his face in disgust at Myungsoo before stealing his bottle of coke and practically draining it.

“I’d rather watch him eating than have to clear out all of Sunggyu’s shit,” Sungyeol continues to complain, “honestly why isn’t he dong this?”

Woohyun rolls his eyes and is about to respond but at that point he notices Myungsoo is adding something into Hoya’s coffee as he’s not looking. It’s probably pepper, maybe salt, and Woohyun knows that Myungsoo means no harm but his stomach still swoops unpleasantly at the sight.

When he notices that Woohyun is looking at him, Myungsoo just winks conspiratorially which brings the swirling feeling in his stomach higher until it’s sitting right in the middle of his chest, pressing down, pressing up, pressing everywhere.

“Let’s not have this argument again,” Dongwoo interjects cheerfully, though there’s a very clear undercurrent of warning in his voice.

“Yeah,” Hoya says looking back towards the table. He’d been observing the waitress, something about her clearly having caught his paranoid eye, “For all we know Sunggyu could be listening in right now.”

Woohyun tries to ignore the growing pressure in his stomach as Sungyeol complains and everyone else bickers playfully. He’s a professional, he can do this, he can pretend his body isn’t irrationally betraying him over nothing.

He’s okay, he manages, he starts to feel closer to normal. Until Hoya takes another drink of his coffee. And promptly spits it out.

“What the _fuck_ Kim Myungsoo,” Hoya swears, loudly looking well and truly disgusted.

Myungsoo laughs so hard he falls off his chair.

Woohyun feels like he’s going to be sick.

 

♡♡♡

 

The uneasy feeling doesn’t leave Woohyun. Instead it continues to grow, pushing through his body till it’s everywhere; rattling round in his brain, churning in his stomach, weighing down his limbs till he feels heavy to his very core.

He’s not a grifter for nothing though so he doesn’t let it show, continues to listen as Hoya and Myungsoo bicker, as Sungyeol complains. He acts perfectly fine, and uncooperative, as they leave the diner and head to Sungyeol’s place; helping put the bare necessities in place so that they can’t be caught unaware. They don’t bother with everything though, since Sunggyu is still set on getting out of the country.

“I want everyone to lay low for a week,” Sunggyu explains, later that evening. They’ve spent the afternoon setting Sungyeol’s place up and are now crammed into his living room, even smaller than Sunggyu’s since it’s only a one bedroom place.

“Because when we’re not on jobs we’re usually so conspicuous,” Sungyeol snarks, rolling his eyes. He’s been even bitchier than usual since having his space invaded though that’s understandable - Woohyun wouldn’t want anyone in his place (he’s not sure any of them except Sungyeol even know where it is)

“You don’t know how to be anything except conspicuous,” Sungjong rolls his eyes.

Sungyeol looks like he’s about to claim offence but Myungsoo chimes in from his place on the floor before he gets the chance, “Remember that time you hacked all those electronic billboards across America to play that one drama you really liked.” Myungsoo pauses, craning his neck back so he can see Sungyeol, “We weren’t even _in_ America at the time,”

“Or the traffic lights that blinked the morse code for SOS for over three hours in Shibuya.” Dongwoo contributed.

“Oh yeah, that was a good one.” Sungyeol says reminiscing with a smug smile, “The police got half a dozen calls about it.”

Woohyun sits in the corner as they argue playfully about all the shit Sungyeol has pulled, letting the conversation wash over him and trying to focus on breathing. On remembering to breathe, something that he’s oddly had to make a conscious effort to do for the last six hours. It’s not something he’s going to examine now; amongst this team. Instead he’ll leave it alone till he’s alone to unpack it.

Or just ignore it till it goes away.

He tunes back into the conversation when he hears Sunggyu start talking, redirecting the conversation back on track, “-finished with his not-so-humble brag,” Sunggyu is saying dryly, “As I was saying we’ll lay _low_ for a week, and next Friday we’ll meet up at the diner to discuss our future plans.”

“You mean you’ll tell us what our future plans are.” Dongwoo tells him, turning sideways so he’s now looking at Sunggyu instead of just pressed into his side. If it were anyone else Sunggyu would bristle but Dongwoo sounds so matter-of-fact about it that Sunggyu apparently can’t bring himself to.

“I mean I’ll sort out some details and then we’ll talk about where we’re going next.” Sunggyu tells him.

“Does that mean we’re not going to meet before next Friday then?” Myungsoo asks.

Sunggyu nods, “That will be best. Try not to get together in groups of more than three for the next week,” He looks thoughtful, “They’ll be processed tonight so they won’t have a chance to send anyone after us yet, and they don’t know any locations besides the one we’ve already burned but it’s better safe than sorry.”

Woohyun fights down the bitter scoff that’s brewing in him, ‘better safe than sorry’, where the fuck was better safe than sorry when he was being sent practically blind into a situation that ended up with him _drugged_? Nowhere. Sunggyu is such a hypocrite that Woohyun wants to punch him in the throat.

And on that note sending anyone after ‘us’ is rich since Sunggyu is basically the only one that hasn’t been made; if anyone is being hunted it’s going to be Woohyun and Hoya.

“Where are we going to stay then?” Dongwoo asks. If you ask Woohyun it’s kind of irresponsible and short sighted not to have at least one back up place in a city you’re based in, but judging by the way Sunggyu is shrugging neither him or Dongwoo do. Sometimes it seems like Sunggyu has been born into this life of crime, but other times Woohyun remembers he’s been at it less than eighteen months.

“Hotel,” Myungsoo suggests speaking with a full mouth of …something. Woohyun hadn’t even seen him eating before.

“No,” Sunggyu says sharply, “No Hotels.”

“So with one of us then,” Woohyun says quietly. He’s dreading that because he really doesn’t want to deal with either of them; Sunggyu for obvious reasons and Dongwoo because he doesn’t feel like keeping up with his _energy_ right now.

“Myungsoo,” Dongwoo turns with wide eyes.

“Sorry, I only have one bedroom and my place is crowded as it is,” Myungsoo says sounding genuinely remorseful about it as he glances at Hoya. Though he could just be acting to make Dongwoo feel better.

Dongwoo pouts, starting to turn to Woohyun but before he can ask Sungjong lets out a long suffering sigh, “You can stay with me,” Dongwoo cheers enthusiastically, and slings an arm around his shoulder chattering away about how much fun they’re going to have.

 “Does that mean I’m stuck with Sunggyu?” Sungyeol asked with a sigh, “Why have I had the shortest end of the stick this entire job.”

He’s joking as Sungyeol almost always is, but his comment still rubs Woohyun the wrong way, so much that he can’t help snapping, “And here I was thinking that _I_ was the one that’s had the worst time of it.” He smiles sarcastically, “But by all means sure, having to room with Sunggyu and move some boxes is much worse than being _drugged_.” He injects sarcasm into it, trying to pass it off as a joke, but he can tell by the way everyone has gone silent and started looking at him that it hasn’t really worked.

Woohyun wants to sink back into the cushions and nurse his wounds, pretend that no one else is here, but he can’t because they are here and they are looking at him so instead he sits up straight, “What,” he shrugs as nonchalantly as he can, “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Dongwoo says, “But Namu if you ever want-” he starts to say, but Woohyun knows how that statement ends and he doesn’t want to talk so he cuts him off.

“I want to know if Sungyeol ever figured out whether our marks were actually Seungri and Taeyang Park.” Woohyun says smoothly. He actually couldn’t give two shits right now but he figures it’s something that’s probably interesting enough to distract everyone.

He’s right, as Myungsoo and surprisingly Hoya, both back him up vocally.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Sungyeol preens, never one to give up an opportunity to brag.

“Well, are they?” Myungsoo asks impatiently when it becomes apparent that Sungyeol is going to force someone to ask for dramatic effect.

“They most definitely are not,” Sungyeol says with a flourish.

“How do you know?” Dongwoo asks curiously, as Woohyun takes the opportunity of the distraction to sink back further into his chair.

“Well for one the real Park Seungri is dead.”

Oh. Woohyun was not expecting that at all.  Judging by the stunned silence, no one was.

“How do you know that?” Sungjong asks with an unnerving tilt of his head, “Yet no one else seems to,”

“Because no one else comes close to my level,” Sungyeol says completely straight faced, before deciding to drop his ego for half a second, “And no one else has probably been bothered to look further in. Like I said they were really good imposters.”

“Yeah but how did no one notice their faces changed completely?” Hoya questions curiously as Woohyun starts to pick on the loose thread in the arm of the chair. Sungyeol really needs to invest in some new furniture that’s not falling apart he - can obviously afford it.

“I don’t _actually_ have the answer to everything,” Sungyeol shrugs.  “if I can’t hack it I don’t know.” Now that is obviously a lie.

“If the real Seungri died in South Korea just before they moved, no one knew who they were or what they looked like and they didn’t care as long as they were throwing money around.” Sunggyu explains. That’s the same conclusion Woohyun had come to; that’s how he would have done it. With less murder though.

“He did seem to die around the time they moved from Korea,” Sungyeol says thoughtfully. Woohyun was right, Sungyeol clearly did have the answers, though he’s not sure what he gained from pretending not to, “I’m not entirely sure if our friends murdered him to steal his identity or just seized the opportunity and moved so that no one would find out.”

“They’re the scum of the earth anyway, I’m not sure it particularly matters,” That particularly harsh comments comes, uncharacteristically from Dongwoo. Woohyun can’t say he disagrees as he pulls more insistently on the thread still in his hand. Not that it matters if the chair falls apart Sungyeol’s probably going to move on and leave it behind soon anyway.

“What happened to the real Taeyang?” Myungsoo asks, resting his head back on Hoya’s leg.

“I’m not sure.” Sungyeol says honestly and not just playing dumb for potentially the first time ever, “If he’s dead his body’s never been discovered. But from what I’ve read about him trying to figure it out I can’t imagine he’d passively just let someone steal his identity.”

“Unless he was in on it,” Hoya says.

“You think he murdered his own brother?” Dongwoo asks with a frown as if the thought is out of the realm of possibility. They’ve _seen_ cases of people screwing their siblings over before so why that is Woohyun can’t figure out.

“Maybe. Maybe he murdered his own brother. Maybe they paid him off to keep quiet or threatened him. Maybe that was the real Taeyang Park and it was just an imposter Seungri. We don’t know. I’m not sure it really matters,” Hoya explains calmly. Woohyun tugs harder on the loose thread struck once again by the thought Hoya’s seen a lot more than the rest of them.

“It just matters they go to jail for a long time,” Myungsoo agrees with a determined nod.

“And their money is gone. In case the legal system fails,” Sungjong speaks up ever the voice of realism. Half the reason they do what they do is because the legal system is constantly failing.

Woohyun tugs the thread so hard he catches Sungjong’s attention, the younger boy frowning at him in concern. Woohyun chooses to categorically ignore him and focuses on making sure he’s breathing as regularly as possible.

“We won’t let the legal system fail,” Sungyeol says confidently, like he can have any effect on the legal system. Sungyeol’s good, but Woohyun is pretty sure that you can’t hack a jury or judge. Unless they’re a robot. But that seems unlikely.

Woohyun gets so wrapped up in his own thoughts and the rhythmic tugging of the couch thread, not even bothering to keep an ear on the conversation happening on (except for mentions of his name) that he’s confused for a second, and has to work harder than usual, when Hoya and Sungyeol get to their feet and leave the room.

He tunes back in trying to figure out what is going on without letting everyone know he’s not paying attention.

“Can Sungyeol even cook?” Myungsoo is asking teasingly, now sitting next to Sungjong on the couch when he’d been on the floor last time Woohyun had checked. He probably got up to look for a new human pillow when Hoya, who he’d been using previously, got up. Woohyun doesn’t know though because he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings for once.

“No, but I made something earlier.” Dongwoo says cheerily. Myungsoo and surprisingly Sungjong cheer at that, since Dongwoo’s cooking is good but rare. Dinner. Sungyeol and Hoya must have gotten up to get food. Surreptitiously glancing at his watch Woohyun is surprised to notice that it’s almost eight. Where has the evening gone?

Sungyeol returns to the room then, with six glasses of water balanced in his hands somehow. He gives one to Sunggyu and then makes his way to Woohyun who is next closest to the door.

“Here,” Sungyeol says, holding it out to Woohyun. At the sight of the open glass Woohyun’s stomach swoops and that sick feeling he’s been working so hard at repressing rises back to the surface. “Woohyun,” Sungyeol shakes the glass as best he can with another five of them balanced.

Woohyun shakes his head mutely, clenching his fist where it rests on the arm of the chair.

“Oh for fucks sake Woohyun would you just take it,” Sungyeol snaps, pushing the glass at Woohyun’s closed fist till he has no choice but to open it. Sungyeol barely makes sure Woohyun has a grip on it before he’s turning away to hand another glass to Myungsoo, making some obnoxious joke in the process.

Woohyun’s brain flips.

His fingers aren’t working and the glass is slipping from his fingers, dropping to the floor and bouncing but not breaking. The contents of the cup are all over Woohyun’s pants and the carpet but he barely even notices.

“Woohyun?” Suddenly all the eyes in the room are on him.

“Woohyun are you okay?” Dongwoo asks sounding concerned.

Woohyun shrinks into the chair feeling the panic that’s been simmering through his body ignite, it races through him until his brain his foggy, until his hands are shaking. It was just a glass of water handed to him by someone he likes, might even says he trusts on a good day, and yet it feels like it’s stripped control from him as surely as being drugged by a mark.

That’s the worst bit he thinks, or he would think if his brain wasn’t made of mush right now, the association. The fact he feels like he’s never going to be able to drink something he didn’t pour himself ever again.

“Woohyun?” Someone else is calling again. Right up in his space.

“Give him space idiot,” Someone else is snapping, everyone’s voices sort of melding into one mess of noise. Woohyun’s barely able to make the words out. 

“Woohyun?” His name is starting to sound like a made up word, words are starting to sound not real, he looks up at the six faces staring at him all in various degrees of concern and does the only thing he can possibly even consider doing at the moment.

He bolts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going away for a week so either I'll have the next chapter finished and just ready for a beta by the time I get back or I'll get nothing done. For my sake hopefully the second one.


	6. Act IV ½

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being away with no internet was both a blessing (this chapter was 90% finished whilst away) and a curse (This chapter ended up way longer than I intended) but here we are. 
> 
> I'm done, I'm out, I'm finished. It took me way longer than it should have to finish this chapter but finally we are here.

♡♡♡

 

Woohyun doesn’t remember going back but he knows he must have because when his brain calms down enough that he can process thoughts instead of having them simply rattling around in his head creating an overwhelming sense of white noise he finds himself sitting on the floor in the middle of his apartment.

(What Woohyun doesn’t know and might never know is that Sungjong follows him to make sure he gets home that evening )

He sits, staring at the priceless antique vase he has sitting on his television unit, the only piece he’s ever stolen that he keeps in his house, trying to order his thoughts. His thoughts however don’t want to be ordered, instead they swim round in his head, sometimes spinning out of control sometimes moving so sluggishly he can barely comprehend.

Eventually, once he’s comfortable his legs probably won’t give out on him if he risks standing up, he decides it’s a futile effort. Instead he gets up, tries to push the troublesome thoughts to wherever he’s managed to keep them locked away for the last week and walks into the kitchen.

He opens the fridge, staring at the wrapped leftovers and opened bottles that he’s left in there. That feeling rises, rises again, as if he hasn’t weighed it down properly and its floating back to the top of his mind. He slams the fridge door then, trapping the panic in with the food. It’s a nice image though he’s not sure how effective it is.

He walks to the pantry next but that’s no better, the opened containers of food staring back at him as if they actually had eyes.

He walks out of the room backwards, tripping over his feet in a way he hasn’t done since he was a clumsy kid learning to fake his place in a world that didn’t want him.

Eventually he manages to make it to his room, kick his shoes off and curl up in bed fully dressed, pulling the covers over his head and trying to draw some flimsy shield between himself and the world.

If only it was the world that was his problem instead of his brain.

Understandably he barely sleeps.

 

♡♡♡

 

Woohyun manages to fall into a fitful sleep as the sun is starting to rise, peeking through his admittedly very flimsy curtains (it’s a rare day the sun is up before him).

He’s woken up what must be a couple of hours later by the ringing of his phone. He’s instantly awake, and with a start he realises that the phone is still shoved in the pocket of the pants he is wearing, despite his panic induced insomnia last night he’d barely ever felt it.

By the time he’s managed to fish the device out of his pocket through the tangled mess his sheets have turned into it’s stopped ringing. Woohyun is debating whether he wants to even see who called him let alone call them back when the incessant ringing starts again. Glancing at the phone with a sigh he sees it’s Dongwoo.

Fuck that. Dongwoo’s about the only one he would feel guilty for ignoring and someone’s clearly exploiting that. Maybe Dongwoo himself.

“Hello,” he answers the phone with a sigh.

“Woohyun, hi.” Dongwoo’s voice comes down the line, as cheerful as always but with a more gentle note to it.

“Hi Dongwoo,” Woohyun says carefully, curling further into himself as he answers the phone. His hands are still shaking a little, though maybe it’s at the thought of talking to anyone on his team right now, but maybe a distraction will be good for him. As long as there are no prying questions.

It’s Dongwoo though - there will almost certainly be prying questions.

“Did you make it home okay?” Dongwoo asks completely shamelessly, “I kind of wanted to check last night but Hoya said to give you time, so I’ve given you time.”

“I made it home. I’m home right now. I’m-” he pauses because he’s not fine. He maybe have some of the worst self-preservation instincts on the planet but he can admit to himself that he’s not alright at the moment. But just because he can admit it to himself doesn’t mean he needs to say it out loud to another human being, “I’m fine Dongwoo.”

“If you say so.” Dongwoo agrees. He still sounds cheerful but Woohyun can tell his disappointed that Woohyun is lying to him. If he expected Woohyun to spill his guts or something though he clearly doesn’t know him particularly well.

“I do say so,” Woohyun tries to sound as reassuring as possible, but given he’s fully dressed in his clothes from yesterday - not even his clothes the clothes of Minjun - and huddled under his blankets he’s not sure how reassuring he can be. Thankfully Dongwoo can’t see him, “You don’t have to worry.”

“You know Hoya might have been the one that first helped you when you were drugged, but I was the one that had to look after you through the worst of it,” Dongwoo’s voice remains so cheerful that Woohyun doesn’t realise how direct he’s being until he’s almost half way through his sentence.

If it was anyone else Woohyun would usually give them a sarcastic reply, or considering how he’s feeling right now probably just hang up, but it’s Dongwoo so he listens. “You know what the scariest part of it all was? How compliant you were. I half felt like if I told you to jump out the window you would have.”

Dongwoo’s finished talking but Woohyun doesn’t know what to say; wouldn’t know what to say even if he was fully rested and functioning normally, “Dongwoo,”

“I’m not asking for sympathy god knows I’m not the one that needs it.” Dongwoo says matter-of-factly, “I’m just letting you know that even if I believed you were fine I would still worry about you. Still remember.”

Woohyun, at the reminder and the concern feels a little bit like he might cry. Or throw up. “Dongwoo,” he says, not wanting to cry in front of a member of his team, especially not Dongwoo.

“Feel better Namu okay?” Dongwoo says, more perceptive than anyone ever gives him credit for, “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Yeah, soon,” Woohyun says before hanging up the phone and throwing it across the room so it lands on the chair he keeps in the corner.

He doesn’t get out of bed all day.

 

♡♡♡

 

The third morning in a row he wakes up to a call from a member of the crew he starts to get suspicious.

“Are you, checking up on me?” He demands as he answers the phone, “Have you got a schedule set up, who has to deal with Woohyun each morning?” He’s mostly being sarcastic. Though Myungsoo did call him yesterday morning, Dongwoo also called him yesterday and that doesn’t seem very organised.

That’s why he’s surprised when Sungyeol tells him, “Yes,” matter-of-factly, like that’s not the most condescending thing that Sunggyu has done this far, “Sunggyu’s worried that you know…”

“That what? I’m going jump out my bedroom window, disappear into the night never to be seen again like you couldn’t track me down in a second if you wanted to?” Woohyun scoffs, leveraging himself into a sitting position against the headboard of his bed, though clutching the sheets in his lap like quite literally a security blanket.

“Give yourself some credit it’d probably take me an hour,” Sungyeol says blasé.

“Oh well in that case, maybe I should go,” Woohyun says, “Actually give Sunggyu something to worry about,”

“I think he just doesn’t want to be down a grifter,” Sungyeol says brutal as always, “Not entirely sure he has any sort of emotional attachment to you,”

“Myungsoo is a person that exists in our team,” Woohyun rolls his eyes, and then continuing this bizarre double part conversation they’ve got going on says, “And thanks, feeling really appreciated here. It’s definitely making me want to stick around,”

“Sunggyu’s gotten lazy and used to having two grifters, he doesn’t remember it’s a luxury.” Sungyeol scoffs. Woohyun’s pretty sure he considers mocking Sunggyu to be a hobby, “And can you really blame him for not getting emotionally attached when you waste so much energy actively preventing anyone from getting too close to you,”

“Typical,” Woohyun scoffs, acknowledging the first part but laying that conversation to bed. He’s more interested in the second part. “And isn’t it a bit hypocritical to be coming from you?”

“Everyone knows where I live, I sometimes socialise with people outside the job, everyone on the team has my phone number,” Sungyeol is listing off as if he has a long list of grievances with the way Woohyun deals with the team. He could be bluffing to antagonise Woohyun or he could have a legitimate list, but Woohyun isn’t going to sit here and listen to find out.

“Sungyeol,” Woohyun cuts him off a little more sharply than he intended; he hadn’t wanted Sungyeol to know he was annoyed, “I get it I value my privacy.”

“Woohyun we all value our privacy it’s sort of a trait of the job, are you a private person, do you have dubious morals, would you shoot a man and rob his corpse? If so life as a career criminal could be right for you.”

Woohyun barks out a laugh at that despite himself. Sungyeol hums in that pleased way he has when a joke he makes lands, “This isn’t a heart to heart, god knows I don’t care about that go talk to Myungya? Hosoo? If you want that.”

“Myungya?” Woohyun asks despite himself.

“Yeah, Myungsoo and Hoya. Like Brangelina or whatever they’re called? They’re practically one weirdly codependent unit at this point,” Woohyun can picture Sungyeol shrugging right now, which is probably what he is doing.

“Are they really codependent if Hoya spends half his life not here?” Woohyun muses curiously. This is much safer territory if slightly inane.

“Emotionally codependent -they probably call each other every night and read bedtime stories or something.” Sungyeol says. Not exactly a mental picture that Woohyun ever wanted or needed in his life. But then Sungyeol says, “You’re doing it again, that thing where you distract away from even vaguely deep conversations with stupid musings about things no one cares about.”

“I do not do that,” Woohyun can’t help saying despite the fact it’s his go to distraction tactic. The problem is he’s so practised at using it that no one should notice, but Sungyeol has noticed. Sungyeol has noticed and god knows who else has and that’s just another layer of protection of himself that’s been stripped away from him apparently.

Woohyun is so uncomfortable he can feel it in his body, twisting around the still lingering fear and unease.

“You do that.” Sungyeol refutes, before sighing, “I don’t do heart to hearts,”

“So you’ve mentioned,” Woohyun scoffs, “But this feels an awful lot like a heart to heart.”

“Maybe I’m willing to do it for you,” Sungyeol says in a way that’s completely disarming leaving Woohyun bordering on speechless, “Or maybe I’m giving you some friendly advice,” he continues. “If you want the others to stop feeling like you’re creating emotional distance between yourself and the rest of us maybe you should stop using same techniques you use on marks on us.”

Woohyun had never thought of it that way. He’s been so used to being on his own and having constant walls up that it’s almost become a way of life for him, he doesn’t know how to be a Woohyun who doesn’t deflect and dodge emotional bonds. He’s way too on edge and uncomfortable to examine it now, especially with Sungyeol though because he says, “Maybe you and Sungjong should take that advice.”

“There’s a difference between playful use of your skills and treating your friends like marks,” Sungyeol shoots back straight away like that was the answer he’d been expecting. Woohyun clutches the sheets in his hand till his knuckles go white, “When Sungjong steals something of yours then you know about it and you’ll find it again, and trust me if I wanted to do damage to your bank account or reputation or whatever I could,” Woohyun fully believes that, “there’s a difference.”

“Are you completely sure this isn’t a heart to heart?” Woohyun tries, “Because this feels a little bit like one,”

“I know,” Sungyeol’s apparently said all that he needs to say on the matter, “And I’m probably going to need to bathe in acid to remove the feelings, but since we’re already here has Myungsoo managed to convince you to talk to Hoya?”

“Why would he be trying to do that?” Woohyun asks, as if Myungsoo hadn’t heavily been hinting at it when he’d called yesterday.

“Maybe because you two have things you need to discuss,” Woohyun can hear the eye roll in Sungyeol’s voice. It’s a very distinctive tone.

“Yeah, okay it was never funny to begin with Sungyeol but this juvenile Hoya and Woohyun sitting in a tree crap you’ve been spewing the last week is starting to get beyond obnoxious,” Woohyun tells him with a bite in his voice.

“I’m not trying to push you to fuck each other, that’s not something I ever want to think about or visualise, I’m trying to get you to talk because you both have issues and no one wants you dragging them into our next job.” Sungyeol snaps seemingly finally losing his patience.

“Why would Hoya have issues?” Woohyun can’t help asking, “Besides you know his usual bucket of them, but that has nothing to do with me that has to do with his violent urges and lack of human emotions,”

“You know,” Sungyeol says, “You say that but I’m pretty sure he’s got a better handle on emotions and you know human connection than you have.”

Out of everything that Sungyeol has flung at him over the course of this uncomfortable conversation that might just be the one that’s unnerved him the most,

The silence drags on for an uncomfortable period before Woohyun finally says, “You’ve got to be cruel to be kind huh?”

“I’m just telling you the truth because it’s about time someone finally did,” Sungyeol sounds exhausted. Not for the first time Woohyun wonders exactly how much he does for them all. Plus living with Sunggyu’s got to be extra difficult. “We need more fucking honesty around here. All of us, maybe then jobs wouldn’t end up as fucked as this.” Sungyeol clearly can’t help throwing a barb at Sunggyu in. Woohyun can hardly blame him.

“Something you’ve discussed?” Woohyun asks lightly but wondering.

“Don’t need to discuss it.” Sungyeol says. “Look do whatever the fuck you want Woohyun, I’m just letting you know how it stands.”

“Thank you,” Woohyun forces himself to say, because maybe he did need a reality check. It’s something to think about at the very least, though circumstances could have been less unclear. “But I still fail to see how this could have given Hoya issues.”

“For someone that claims to be an expert at this reading people stuff,” Sungyeol tells him with a theoretical sigh. “He’s fucked up about your lack of consent when he kissed you. Like you were super fucked up Woohyun,”

“It was just a kiss,” Woohyun scoffs. Hoya kissed him as part of a job, it’s not something Woohyun is going to lose sleep over. It’s basically the least of his worries at the moment, a kiss isn’t the reason he can barely look at anything in his pantry.

“I shouldn’t need to tell you that different people have different lines in the sand Woohyun, clearly this is one of Hoya’s.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to the guy, get his conscience in order for him.” Woohyun says with a sigh, as if he’s doing Hoya a favour. “Hey Sungyeol,” Woohyun says, since this is perhaps the best opening he’s going to have to ask and Sungyeol’s the one that made it all bizarre and emotional. Twice, “Hoya’s not his real name is it?”

Sungyeol scoffs, “Obviously not,”

“What is it?” Woohyun can’t help asking.

“Nice try but no,” Sungyeol tells him, “Even if I did know it I wouldn’t just tell you it when he clearly doesn’t want to tell you for whatever reason.”

“You expect me to believe you didn’t look it up within five minutes of our first meeting him? After how fucking livid you were?” Woohyun asks skeptically.

“Oh I tried. I just couldn’t find it. He’s done a very good job at hiding whatever part of his past he’s not a fan of,” Sungyeol says. Sungyeol is and says a lot of things but Woohyun has never once seen him lie about or downplay his skills.

“Oh, wow,” Woohyun says. There’s a fundamental shift in the way that he thinks of Hoya that starts there, just a hairline fracture that changes everything. He doesn’t notice it yet though, of course he doesn’t.

“Yeah, wow,” Sungyeol scoffs, “I have actual important things to be doing now though instead of babysitting you over the phone, so sort your issues and don’t bring them back to us okay?”

“That’s awfully harsh, you got drugged helping us but like deal with it on your own,” Woohyun says sarcastically.

“If you wanted our help dealing no one would turn you away, but you clearly don’t so, do what you want Woohyun,” Sungyeol says, “Just don’t drag us down with it. Feel better soon.”

And then he hangs up.

Woohyun stares at the phone in his hands, feeling like he just had a conversation that went in a huge circle. That’s essentially what he did, though it was entirely on his own shoulders. Maybe Sungyeol had a point.

He sits in bed turning his phone in his hands and his thoughts in his brain for another half an hour before he gets up and goes to the pantry. Walks in. Tries to breathe as he searches through everything for an unopened box of something. Anything. Settles on a box of crackers.

Pulls them out and sets them on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t open them, but it was progress.

Instead he returns to his room and calls Myungsoo.

 

 

♡♡♡

 

Even though he was the one that called Myungsoo, when Woohyun walks into his living room that evening, willing to try giving his pantry another go, to find Hoya sitting on the couch like he owns the place he freaks out. Just a little. By letting out a bit of a yell and picking up the nearest thing to him and lobbing it at Hoya’s head.

Of course Hoya catches it with unnatural ease, but Woohyun is more impressed his throw ended up close enough to his target that Hoya _could_ catch it.

“If I was really here to harm you I’m sure this would have scared me off,” Hoya smirks at him, throwing the Ipod that Woohyun had hurled at him in the air before catching it and repeating the action.

“What do you want Hoya?” Woohyun sighs, walking into the kitchen just for something to do, though it had been his original destination.

“Myungsoo said you’re the one that wanted to talk to me,” Hoya calls out after him. “If he’s wrong or you’ve changed your mind in the last hour and you don’t want me here I’ll go.”

“Really?” Woohyun can’t help turning around and fixing Hoya with a skeptical look, “You’ll give up the opportunity to mock me? Are you sure?”

Instead of taking the bait and snarking right back at Woohyun and making at least something in this mess of a week vaguely normal, Hoya fixes Woohyun with a serious look, “I don’t actually get any enjoyment out of making you uncomfortable Woohyun.”

“What was it that you said to Sunggyu the other day? If you’re going to lie to me don’t bother saying anything at all,” Woohyun scoffs. Hoya’s favourite game is making people uncomfortable and Woohyun seems to be his second favourite target after Sunggyu.

“I’m not lying. There’s a difference between teasing you and making you uncomfortable in your own home but if you can’t see that Woohyun…” Hoya tells him steadily. He doesn’t finish the thought, doesn’t really need to.

Combined with his conversation with Sungyeol earlier the chastising that Hoya is giving him as light as it is, makes Woohyun feel… inadequate, burdensome. A number of things he’s startlingly unfamiliar with.

Something of that must show on his face because Hoya suddenly looks panicked all of a sudden, like he thinks Woohyun’s about to burst into tears or attempt to murder him. The sight makes him feel a little better.

“I don’t like to talk about things.” Woohyun says, it’s an offering. It’s trying to start a conversation he’s been told so many times he needs to have that he’s not sure if he wants to have it or feels obligated to have it.

“Are you sure about that?” Hoya raises an eyebrow because apparently now Woohyun’s trying to be serious he’s decided to return to his usual lame jokes, “Because you do it a lot.”

“I like to talk,” Woohyun admits shamelessly, “I don’t like to talk about things that matter.”

Hoya nods, seemingly serious again, “I understand that. Live with Myungsoo for three years though and you’ll eventually get over that.”

“That’s how long you’ve been with Myungsoo?” Woohyun can’t help but ask, always curious about those two and their bond. Any new bit of information is interesting to him.

Hoya smirks like he knows exactly what Woohyun’s thinking, “That’s how long I was with Myungsoo before he wore me down with feelings.” It’s still something. Something that can be interpreted many ways, but something.

“Myungsoo and Sungyeol and even Dongwoo seem to think there are things I need to talk about with you, and I’m not sure what they want me to say or, no offence, why they want me to say it to you.” Woohyun says, refusing to look at Hoya because he’s terrified that Hoya’s going to laugh at him, that this is some ridiculous practical joke that Sungyeol has cooked up. He wants to believe that Sungyeol wouldn’t be so cruel or high stakes but he still remembers vividly the mess that was the Osaka job late last year

Hoya just looks at him for an extended period of time (and he says he doesn’t enjoy making Woohyun uncomfortable) before he sighs, “I’m sure they have their reason.”

“Or none of them want to deal with me, just palm the crazy grifter off onto the absentee hitter.” Woohyun says. He means for it to sound sarcastic but it ends up coming out more bitter than anything. 

Hoya gets up and walks into the kitchen then throwing a “Well I can’t speak for the others but I know Soo says he’d rather not get his head bitten off by one of his friends,” over his shoulder as he goes.

Guilt is the main emotion that Woohyun feels at that, potentially Hoya’s aim but it does sound like something Myungsoo would say or at the very least feel. When Hoya doesn’t return from the kitchen Woohyun starts to panic and quickly follows him into the room.

“I wouldn’t,” Woohyun starts to say before stopping because okay yes he’d only been short to Myungsoo but he had bitten Dongwoo and more deservedly Sungyeol’s heads off this week. That’s when he notices that Hoya is riffling through his pantry, “What are you doing?” He asks sounding more panicked than he’d really like.

Hoya looks up at him with that infuriatingly knowing face of his, “Just looking, I’m hungry.”

“Can you not.” Woohyun means to sound annoyed and exasperated but he ends up sounding so insecure. If his voice could start doing what he’d like it to do (something he’s had no problems with before) that’d be really nice. It’s kind of important for his job.

“Okay,” Hoya steps out of the pantry, “Why not?” he asks, looking pointedly at the crackers still sitting on Woohyun’s kitchen bench before he honest to god just hops up onto the counter, sitting cross legged like it’s a chair or something.

“Do you have to sit on my furniture with your filthy boots?” There’s the annoyance Woohyun had been aiming for earlier.

Hoya shrugs and kicks the boots off, so they land in the door way with pretty precise accuracy. Fucking hitters and their control of their bodies. “Why not?”

“Because it’s my space and you can’t just invade it like you own it?” Woohyun tries sarcastically. Clearly Hoya just brings out the annoyance in him, it’s nice when the alternative had been crushing insecurity.

“Okay.” Hoya says like he’s willing to accept that even though it’s so blindingly obvious it’s more than that in a way even Sunggyu would probably notice.

They have a staring contest for what feels like an eternity before Hoya hops down off the bench top and makes to leave, “Look if you don’t want me here don’t let the others pressure you into it.”

Hoya’s probably bluffing. Woohyun’s instincts tell him that he’s bluffing to get a reaction out of him but his instincts haven’t exactly been serving him well recently.

“I can’t do it.” Woohyun blurts out looking down at his feet.

Hoya pauses but doesn’t turn around, “Can’t do what?”

“Anything? Be a normal functioning human being? Eat things.” Woohyun says, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Hoya has now turned back towards him face impassive.

“You haven’t been eating?” Hoya asks quite sharply.

“Not really. I’m just. You saw what happened at Sungyeol’s place.”Woohyun says, stalling for time as he figures out what to say.

“You didn’t like being handed an open glass. Understandably.” Hoya says. Woohyun suddenly remembers Hoya getting him a closed bottle not an open glass to drink when they were out the other day. Woohyun isn’t sure if he’s been transparent or if Hoya is startlingly perceptive. He’s not sure which scares him more.

“But it’s not just open glasses, it’s anything that’s been opened,” Woohyun refuses to look up because he knows if he looks at Hoya this flood of words that have started and won’t stop will dry up, but he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to talk but he doesn’t want to bottle it all up, “And it’s stupid no one but Sungjong and Sungyeol and apparently now you know where I live, none of them even know who I am and yet I look at anything in my cupboard and it’s like someone has poisoned all of it, I feel like if I eat it I’ll go right back to that club and won’t have control of anything.” He’s self aware enough to now this whole shit show is about control or lack thereof.

“Okay,” Hoya says (again, does he know any other words?) as if that’s somehow totally reasonable and not a certifiable reason to kick him off the team.

“Okay?” Woohyun questions skeptically.

“Okay.” Hoya nods in confirmation, “So what can we do? Would grocery shopping help? Get all new packages to prove to yourself they’re safe?”

“Why are you indulging my stupidity?” Woohyun blurts out. He’s not usually one to let a single word slip past his lips he hasn’t analysed from every angle the response it’s going to get and the interpretations it could lend itself to. Obviously though he’s not exactly feeling himself though.

“You’re not the first person on the planet to have something borderline-traumatising happen to you, or to specifically be drugged.” Hoya tells him matter-of-factly, “I’m not a shrink, I’m not going to get you to talk about your feelings or whatever, but we do need you to be functional for this team and so we do what you need to do to feel functional.”

Vaguely Woohyun wonders if he’s talking about an incident that happened to himself or Myungsoo. Maybe Sungjong, though that seems unlikely, or someone else important to him that Woohyun hasn’t met. Hoya’s definitely talking from close personal experience though, Woohyun isn’t so off his game he hasn’t noticed that.

Woohyun wets his lips with his tongue and doesn’t press Hoya. Instead he answers the question, “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to freak me out and I don’t know how to stop it,” Woohyun says frustration at himself leaking out into his voice.

“Well you’ve got to eat.” Hoya says. Woohyun is struck with the odd thought that he’s being mothered, by Hoya of all people. It’s clearly his sleep addled brain because Hoya is the opposite of the mothering type.

“Well obviously,” Woohyun retorts, “Mind telling my fucking brain that?”

Hoya’s mouth twists unpleasantly for a second, in a way that makes Woohyun step backwards, before his face clears. “Right, we’re going shopping.”

 

♡♡♡

 

Shopping with Hoya is an experience, especially because he refuses to touch anything they buy and rather makes Woohyun place everything in his trolley himself.

It probably made an odd sight for anyone that saw them but Woohyun can’t bring himself to care, especially since they’re apparently going to be out of the country soon.

Once they’re finished Woohyun watches as Hoya removes every package that has been opened from his pantry (The food wastage is going to be insane but Woohyun can’t bring himself to care) before making Woohyun put everything he’s bought today in.

“If this doesn’t work we’ve wasted so much time and money.” Woohyun sighs once he puts the last tin in the pantry. He can stand in it without his hands shaking though so, unfortunately, Hoya’s probably had a good solution.

“Like you can’t afford it,” Hoya rolls his eyes, apparently having decided that his favourite place in the room is sitting on Woohyun’s countertop.

“Why are you doing this though?” Woohyun can’t help but ask in frustration. Charity is not something he’s ever wanted or gotten and Hoya really doesn’t seem the type for charity.

Hoya shrugs, “I had nothing better to do.”

“Bullshit,” Woohyun snaps feeling inexplicably angry, “Stop trying to placate me. In fact stop pretending this is about me at all when all you’re really trying to do is relieve your guilt.”

Hoya’s entire demeanour changes at that. Instead of the easy slouch he’d been adopting all afternoon he’s suddenly all strong posture and coiled aggression, the way he is on a job. “What the fuck Woohyun?” he asks quietly.

Woohyun isn’t gong to back down though not now, “If it’s not about Myungsoo or Sungjong or you then you don’t give a shit about the rest of us, stop pretending that you do. This is about the fact you kissed me when I was drugged for the job and you’ve got some weird guilt complex about it,” Woohyun spits. Sungyeol probably didn’t tell him that for him to throw it back in Hoya’s face but he’s past the point of caring.

Hoya manages to draw himself even higher somehow for such a small person, before he’s hoping off the counter, “If that’s what you believe Woohyun you haven’t been paying nearly as much attention as you pride yourself on,” he says before he starts to leave.

If he was bluffing last time he’s certainly not this time. Woohyun watches him go not sure if he should let him leave (which he wants so badly) or if he should try and fix this before it turns into a _thing_.

He’s so, so tempted to just let Hoya walk away but he’s probably reached the end of everyone’s tolerance with him already and he doesn’t hate this job, the money is good at the very least and he gets to stretch his muscles beyond rich heirs and lost princes.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” He calls after Hoya who’s just about reached his front door.

“You shouldn’t have said that but you still believe it,” Hoya says.

“I’m not going to apologise to you for what I think,” Woohyun says defiantly. He’s also convinced nothing he said was wrong he just said it in the nastiest way possible.

“You know what I am guilty that I kissed you without your consent whilst you were drugged out your mind,” Hoya turns to him still frowning,

“You shouldn’t feel guilty.” Woohyun tells him. Sungyeol was right and it makes no sense because Woohyun doesn’t care so why should Hoya, “I’d probably have done the same thing. I’m not mad. What does it matter?”

“I shouldn’t have had to do that. I know it was the best thing for the job and it’s what got the job done but it still wasn’t right.” Hoya says. Woohyun is sure there’s something else here that’s making Hoya react this way, some skeleton in his closet or childhood trauma. He knows though he’s not going to find out especially after his outburst, at least not now, so he can only take it at face value.

“If you hadn’t kissed me someone else would have done much worse.” Woohyun says, having to step back and lean against the wall because his legs feel like jelly. It’s the first time he’s thought, even to himself, about how much worse it could have been. Hoya watches him go closely but doesn’t say anything.

“I’m not going to be melodramatic and say what’s the difference between them and me, but,” Of all the things for Hoya to be stubborn about it’s had to be the most inconvenient things, first arguing with Sunggyu about the client and now this. How Myungsoo isn’t constantly exhausted from dealing with him Woohyun doesn’t know. “But I also can’t pretend that I’m much more moral than they are.”

For one thing the difference is that Hoya feels (ridiculously, disproportionately) guilty about a stupid kiss, and they wouldn’t have felt guilty about much worse if the way they’d acted when Woohyun had returned was any indication. Hoya’s head was too far up his ass right now for that kind of logic to work though so instead Woohyun tries a more logical approach.

“You want the biggest difference? You’re not the one that drugged me, stupid.”

“I’ve killed a lot of people Woohyun, you think I haven’t drugged any of them?”

Woohyun has never really thought about that, though he supposes it makes sense. Still he can’t bring himself to be too upset about it because he knows Hoya, and there’s one fundamental difference, “Did you drug people for sport? Did you _enjoy_ doing it?”

“Of course not.” Hoya says adamantly.

“Well then there’s your fucking difference you stupid martyr.” Woohyun laughs, for probably the first time in a week.

Hoya’s mouth twists unpleasantly and Woohyun is struck with a memory. “Did you ask me?” He asks Hoya slowly.

“What if I could kiss you?” Hoya asks in annoyance, “Obviously not. That’s kind of what consent _is.”_

“Not if you could kiss me but if I trusted you?” Woohyun says frowning as he tries and crystallises the memory. It’s fuzzy and barely there but it’s the first concrete words he remembers of the night. He thinks. Alternately he could be completely inventing things. He trusts his memory implicitly except when it comes to that night. “I’m not sure if I’m inventing a memory to justify or if it actually happened,”

Hoya’s face softens slightly and he nods, “I did.”

“You asked me if I trusted you, and I did and then you apologised before you even did it?” Woohyun questions, since he’s still pretty fucking hazy on the details.

Hoya nods. “Then there’s your difference,” Woohyun sighs, feeling exhausted by this conversation. If Hoya would just listen to reason they could move on, “I trust you, I’d have trusted all of them in the situation, to make a call that they think is right. You made the actual right call, someone like Dongwoo wouldn’t have.”

Hoya’s face clears, almost completely and very uncannily, then. “Okay.” He nods, “I hear you.” The strangely enough he then smiles at Woohyun, and suddenly he feels like he’s been played. He’s not exactly sure where and to what extent though and that might be the scariest bit.

The two of them stand in the middle of the room staring at each other awkwardly for what feels like an eternity. In any normal situation Woohyun would just do what he always does and snark and bluff but somehow that feels disingenuous at this point.

“So,” Hoya says lightly after the silence extends, “Are you going to eat tonight?”

“I’ve been eating,” Woohyun says defensively as a knee jerk reaction. He’s not been eating particularly well and that’s probably contributing to how shit he feels but he’s not going to die of starvation anytime soon.

“Are you going to eat a proper meal tonight instead of picking at pieces of fruit and muesli bars?” Hoya rephrases the question. Woohyun would wonder how Hoya knows that but he really would not be surprised if the bastard had gone through his trash or something.

“Are you going to join me?” Woohyun asks, feeling bold. He also feels like having someone around as a distraction might potentially help him deal, and Hoya is nothing if not incredibly distracting.

He’s not sure if Hoya knows that or is just angling for a free meal (he has no idea how Myungsoo or Hoya are as cooks honestly but they both look the type to heat up instant ramen or something over taking the time to actually cook) but he says cheekily, “Only if you’re cooking.”

“Lazy,” Woohyun rolls his eyes playing along as if he doesn’t know exactly what Hoya was doing letting him be the only one to handle any food.

“I’m just meeting your expectations,” Hoya quips back as Woohyun manages to step foot into his pantry for the first time since the job ended without feeling like his heart will explode - don’t get him wrong his hands are still shaking like mad but it’s progress. Really good progress.

Hoya is going to make a terrifying grifter one day. He probably already is one.

 

♡♡♡

 

By the end of the week he feels comfortable enough in his own apartment that he can make himself food. If he opens new packages of things each day. It’s progress, is what he has to keep telling himself, and any progress is a good thing.

The end of the week also means that Sunggyu calls them all together at a hole in the wall dinner on the edge of town, far, far away from the Park’s area of operation.

For once Woohyun isn’t the last to arrive, instead it’s Sungyeol and Sunggyu bickering up a storm. Thankfully no one deigns it important enough to comment on it and instead Sunggyu launches straight into business.

“I trust no one has had any trouble this week?” Sunggyu barely waits till he’s sat down before he’s talking, squeezing in next to Myungsoo on one side of the booth. Woohyun who is sandwiched between Myungsoo and Hoya gets pushed even further into the latter, which is annoying. If they start doing that whole pigtail pulling they’re so fond of Woohyun is not going to be impressed.

“You mean besides having to deal with you?” Sungyeol asks nonplussed as he sits next to Dongwoo slightly more delicately than Sunggyu. It’s not particularly fair there’s only three of them on the other side though at least Woohyun knows neither Hoya or Myungsoo is going to try grope his ass; he can’t say the same about Dongwoo. “Yeah trouble-free,”

“Why didn’t you just send him to one of your safe houses?” Woohyun can’t help asking what he was too out of it to ask last week.

“Safe houses?” Dongwoo asks at the same time Sungyeol says, “You think I didn’t try?”

“Safe houses, honestly relying on just one location anywhere is practically asking to be found by someone unsavoury.” Sungyeol answers Dongwoo’s question with perhaps less attitude than if it was Sunggyu but scorn still evident in his voice.

“As interesting as discussing Dongwoo and Sunggyu’s fundamental lack of skills when it comes to operating outside the law is,” Sungjong says sounding bored as he sips on whatever wanky iced drink he feels like this week, “I have more important things to be doing with my life so can we get to the relevant ‘work’.”

“Our intrepid leader’s inability to even basically function as a criminal is probably an important part of our success - or more likely failure - as a crew,” Hoya points out sarcastically.

“Not important right now,” Sunggyu dismisses him, but Woohyun can tell he’s thinking about it, that someone is going to be interrogated later and Sunggyu is going to end up with an excessive amount of safe houses wherever they end up next. He’s all or nothing when it comes to this whole criminal life thing, which is probably going to bite him in the ass one day though perhaps not with safe houses, “What is important is-”

“Telling us who the client was?” Hoya asks pointedly. He’s probably never going to let it die and Woohyun wonders why he’s so adamant about it.

“I’ve told you,” Sunggyu sighs in exasperation, “I can’t tell-”

He’s cut off in the middle of his sentence by Myungsoo of all people, “Yoon Bora,” He says quietly causing everyone to look at him in varying states of confusion, “The client was Yoon Bora.”

Myungsoo was at the meeting with the client, Woohyun finally remembers (he can’t believe he forgot, despite everything). With the way everyone is looking at Myungsoo it seems that no one besides Sunggyu and Hoya remembered that. In fact the hardest bit of all this for Woohyun to believe is that Myungsoo knew and never told Hoya - that is interesting.

“Myungsoo,” Sunggyu hisses at said boy whilst everyone else remains speechless, “You weren’t supposed to tell.”

“You told me to stay quiet during the job and I did even though I didn’t want to.” Myungsoo says turning to look at Sunggyu defiantly. He manages to tower over Sunggyu in presence despite the fact that they’re all crammed into this damn diner booth together. As Hoya looks on with this bizarre smug grin at the site Woohyun has to remind himself that Myungsoo is very good at what he does; almost as good as Woohyun even if their styles are vastly different, “The job is done so I’m telling them.”

Sunggyu frowns like he’s unimpressed but doesn’t push it.

That’s more than can be said of everyone else. “Yoon Bora as in the daughter of Yoon Yangho that filthy rich businessman?” Dongwoo asks.

“Yes,” Sunggyu sighs in resignation, “That Yoon Bora.”

“What’s your connection with Yoon Bora?” Sungyeol asks what everyone has been thinking. If Sungyeol hadn’t picked it up in research it must be deep.

“I told you I never met her before this job,” Sunggyu sighs in exasperation. He has told them that of course but with how personally he’d taken this case and the number of corners he had been cutting no one had believed him.

“But you know,” Dongwoo muses thoughtfully, “She kind of reminds me a lot of-”

Much to everyone’s disappointment, Sunggyu cuts Dongwoo off before he can reveal something personal about himself. “Enough Dongwoo.”

Dongwoo shuts his mouth straight away looking more like a scolded puppy than any grown man has a right to.

“Damn, Yoon Bora,” Sungyeol whistles under his breath like he can’t quite wrap his mind around it. Woohyun feels the same, never in a million years even at his best would he have even considered Yoon Bora. Maybe because she seems more like the kind of person they’d target - nothing against her personally there were CEOs and Rich kids that weren’t shitheads though Woohyun’s only met a few - than help.

“Yes okay, everyone’s curiosity is settled, we know who the client is can we let it go and get back to business?” Sunggyu asks with a sigh. Woohyun half expects him to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation or something.

They don’t quite get a chance though because the one waiter working at this place has apparently noticed they’re here and come to take their orders. Everyone except Woohyun gets something to eat because it’d probably look bizarre if they didn’t but Woohyun just asks for a bottle of water.

He’s made progress but not nearly that much progress.

They make painfully awkward small talk for a little while until their food actually arrives - since they don’t want to be interrupted - before finally, finally Sunggyu can get down to business.

“So, where are we going next?” Myungsoo asks through a mouthful of food - some greasy looking burger thing.

“Well, there’s this job. Bigger than anything we’ve done before but I think it’s more important.” Sunggyu starts off. He’s trying to rationalise to them instead of just telling them where they’re going which must mean it’s something they’re not going to like. It’s probably in Seoul.

“What’s the catch?” Sungyeol asks warily meeting Woohyun’s eye; they’ve clearly come to the same conclusion.

“It’s in Seoul.”

“No.” Hoya and Myungsoo say somehow managing to be completely in synch. It’s not particularly funny though because they both sound so adamant about it. “I told you,” Hoya continues, “We’ll go pretty much anywhere except Korea.”

“It’s important,” Sunggyu says.

“Well then take the job, but count us out for this one.” Hoya says. He’s not arguing with Sunggyu is the thing, not in the same way he did about the client only a few weeks ago. It’s not even like he’s giving Sunggyu an ultimatum. He’s simply stating facts.

“Hoya,” Sunggyu says, as measured and persuasive as he can be (Which is actually pretty persuasive which Woohyun always finds at odds with his general Sunggyuness) , “We need all hands on deck for this one and it’s important.”

“What’s the job?” Hoya asks suspiciously. There’s a tightness in his shoulders that doesn’t go away as Sunggyu explains the job, in fact it gets more prominent.

Right in the middle of his explanation Myungsoo, who doesn’t really look that pleased either and has been eating to distract himself, shifts his plate slightly so that with how closely together they’re packed it bumps against Woohyun’s arm.

“What?” Woohyun mouths at Myungsoo, the two of them having got quite adept at this whole reading non verbal cues and such for jobs but he’s a bit lost right now.

Myungsoo just smiles at him, pushing the plate closer. When Woohyun still does nothing Myungsoo reaches out and pointedly pokes a chip in Woohyun’s direction before picking up another one and making a show of eating it.

Oh. Hesitantly, Woohyun reaches out waiting for the sickening feeling to return. It doesn’t though he can feel his heart rate escalating. He’s seen Myungsoo eating them though and they’re fine. Myungsoo’s fine so hesitantly Woohyun manages to put the food in his mouth and eat it. When he swallows and doesn’t bolt Myungsoo aims one of the brightest smiles that Woohyun has ever seen at him.

Woohyun doesn’t miss the significance of Myungsoo sharing his food, or that he doesn’t feel coddled as he usually would. He just accepts that Myungsoo is willing to do it for him. He’s not sure if that’s a result of talking with Sungyeol and Hoya or if it’s just because it’s Myungsoo.

He manages to split Myungsoo’s chips with him and ignore the bizarre looks being shot his way by everyone, even Sunggyu and Hoya despite their tense conversation.

Eventually though Sunggyu finishes explaining. He’s right, it’s an important job. It’s something Woohyun is fully committed to despite how much work and pre time it’s going to take - over six months.

Everyone waits with bated breath though for Hoya’s verdict. Finally he says, “I’ll make a deal with you. There’s a job I need to get done in Kyoto. Soon.” Sunggyu frowns but doesn’t interrupt. “If we do that, I make no promises but I’ll try my best to do Seoul for this.”

“Myungsoo?” Sunggyu asks thought it’s directed at Hoya. Woohyun tries not to roll his eyes.

Hoya has no such restraint, “Ask Myungsoo.”

Myungsoo nods “If Hoya will try so will I.”

“Well then, Kyoto it is. How soon?” Sunggyu asks.

“By November hopefully.” Hoya says. Clenching his fists together under the table, though Woohyun is the only one that can see it.

“Okay. Then this is what we’re going to do. Everyone make your way to Kyoto on your own.” Sunggyu says matter-of-factly, “Standard procedure.”

“We’re not the Army,” Sungjong speaks up for the first time in a long time, though Woohyun knows he’s potentially been listening harder than any of them “We don’t have a standard procedure.”

“Get yourself to Kyoto within three weeks. Stay inconspicuous, try not to get involved in any side jobs on the way.” Sunggyu rubs at his brow, as if he’s not the one newest to this. “Any questions?”

They all shake their heads. “Well,” Sunggyu says, standing up “I’ll see you all in Kyoto,” Then he walks away.

“Dramatic bastard,” Sungyeol mutters as he goes.

“Yep,” Hoya agrees.

The six of them remaining exchange looks.

 

Then they scatter.

 

 

♡♡♡

 

 

**ACT FIVE**

 

♤♧♢♡

 

 **Woohyun** : _“You want to know what the trick is? It's confidence. You believe what you’re saying and they'll believe it too”_

 

 

- **Ends** -

 

 

**The Paradise Job**

**2011: September**

 

**Target: Taeyang and Seungri Park imposters**

**Client: Yoon Bora**

**Location: REDACTED**

 

**Status: Completed**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot believe I've been working on this for almost four months? I wrote the first scene the day the prompt was posted (Though ultimately it didn't make it into the fic - It was Myungsoo POV and I'll probably end up posting it hence why I created a series)
> 
> This isn't exactly the story I wanted to tell, but it felt necessary if I ever want to end up fully plotting and writing that epic six-year story. Maybe not since this feels so stupidly self-indulgent. Anyway I hope someone managed to enjoy this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed plotting it.
> 
> Thanks for presumably reading my first trip into writing Kpop fic, it's been challenging :)


End file.
